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HUMANISTIC  STUDIES 

Vol.  I,  N0..2 


STUDIES  IN 
BERGSON'S  PHILOSOPHY 

BY 

ARTHUR  MITCHELL,  Ph.  D. 
Assistant  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Kansas 


LAWRENCE,  JANUARY,  1914 


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FRANK  WILSON  BLACKMAli  ARTHUR  TAPPAN   WALKER 

SBLDEN  LINCOLN  UHITCOMR.  Editor 


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Vol.  1  January  1,  1914  No.  2 


STUDIES  IN 
BERGSON'S  PHILOSOPHY 

BY 

ARTHUR  MITCHELL,  PH.D. 
Assistant  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Kansas 


LAWRENCE.  JANUARY.  1914 
PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY 


1 


CONTENTS 

PART  ONE 

BERGSON'S  PHILOSOPHIC  METHOD 

Page 
Chapter  I 
The  Relation  of  Philosophic  Method  to  the  Definition  of 

Philosophy 0 

Chapter   II 
Bergson's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason 17 

Chapter  III 
The  Ancient  Prejudice  against  Analysis 26 

PART  TWO 
BERGSON'S  SYSTEM  OF  DOCTRINE 

Chapter  I 
Ontology  and  Epistemology S7 

Chapter  II 
Mind  and  Matter,  Spirit    and   Body 64 

Chapter  III 
Doctrine  of  Freedom 82 

Chapter  IV 
Bergson's  Abhorrence  of   Determinateness 94 

Chapter  V 
The  Mystical  Yearning  of  Intuitionism 102 

PART  THREE 

BERGSON'S  GENIUS 107 


PREFACE 

In  the  second  part  of  this  essay  material  from  two  papers  pub- 
lished in  the  Journal  uf  Philosophy,  Psychology  unci  Scientific 
Methods  has  been  laid  under  contribution,  and  also  from  my 
doctor's  thesis.  Much  of  this  material  was  written  in  1909,  since 
which  time  a  number  of  views  which  some  of  mine  resemble  more 
or  less  have  been  published.  It  has  not  seemed  to  me  necessary 
always  to  note  these  agreements  of  thought  arrived  at  indepen- 
dently by  myself  and  others. 

I  have  reported  a  part  of  the  brilliant  critique  of  Bergson's  doc- 
trine of  freedom  by  Monsieur  Gustave  Belot.  This  exi)resses  with 
elegance  and  force  much  of  mj'  own  reaction  to  the  doctrine. 
Indebtedness  to  Belot  and  other  authors  is  acknowledged 
throughout  the  essay.  Except  possibly  Professor  Bergson  himself, 
there  is  no  one  who  has  influenced  my  thinking  so  much  as  Pro- 
fessor Ralph  Barton  Perry,  my  teacher  who  introduced  me  to 
Bergson's  philosophy.  Professor  Perry's  writings  are  full  of 
finished  renderings  of  less  articulate  convictions  of  my  own;  and, 
though  I  have  often  referred  to  and  quoted  from  his  work  explicitly, 
his  instruction  and  stimulus  have  had  so  much  to  do  with  the 
history  of  my  thinking  that  I  could  never  say  just  what  I  owe  him, 
but  only  that  I  owe  him  much. 

Professor  Bergson  has  permitted  me  to  translate  from  a  private 
letter  some  comments  of  his  on  certain  of  my  criticisms. 

Professor  Edmund  H.  Hollands  has  given  the  first  two  parts  a 
careful  reading,  in  the  manuscript,  and  his  able  criticisms  and 
suggestions,  mainly  concerning  the  matter  itself,  have  been  of 
great  benefit. 

I  am  no  less  obliged,  for  help  in  improving  the  literary  form, 
to  Professor  S.  L.  Whitcomb,  whose  critical  ability  has  been 


patiently  applied  to  a  careful  revision,  page  by  page,  of  the  whole 
manuscript. 

I  have  tried,  in  the  third  part,  to  justify  explicitly  the  great  and 
unique  value  which  I  attach  to  Professor  Bergson's  work,  antago- 
nistic though  my  own  convictions  are  to  his  results.  And,  besides 
this  aim,  it  has  seemed  to  me  interesting  and  instructive,  in  view 
of  the  very  considerable  literature  which  has  grown  up  about 
Bergson's  philosophy,  to  bring  together  in  a  comparative  view  the 
judgments  of  a  number  of  his  exponents. 

For  literature  by  and  about  Bergson,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
the  exhaustive  bibliography  jjrepared  last  year  by  the  Columbia 
University  Press  under  the  direction  of  Miss  Isadore  G.  Mudge,  the 
Reference  Librarian.  "The  bibliogi'aphy  inclufles  00  books  and 
articles  by  Professor  Bergson  (including  translations  of  his  works) 
and  417  books  and  articles  about  him.  The.se  417  items  repre.sent 
11  different  languages  divided  as  follows: — French  170,  English 
159,  German  40,  ItaHan  10,  Polish  5,  Dutcii  .S,  Spanish  S,  Rou- 
manian 2,  Swedish  2,  Hungarian  1."  This  work  is  invaluable  to 
tlie  student  of  Bergson.  It  is  iiiconiparably  the  fullest  Berg.son 
bibliography  extant. 

-Vkthi  K   Mitchell. 
University  of  Kansas, 
Januarv,  1014. 


PART  ONE 
BERGSON'S  PHILOSOPHIC  METHOD 


i 


Chapter  I 

THE  RELATION  OF  PHILOSOPHIC  METHOD  TO  THE  DEFINITION  OF 

PHILOSOPHY 

One  of  tlie  problems  of  philosophy  is  the  nature  of  philosophy 
itself.  In  recognizing  such  a  problem  at  all,  I  suppose,  the  begin- 
ning of  its  solution  has  been  made.  For  the  very  question,  what 
is  this  or  that  ?  is  conditioned  on  an  incipient  definition  of  the  sub- 
ject of  it,  a  discriminating  acknowledgement  of  it  as  something  in 
particular,  and,  so,  as  something  already  more  or  less  qualified  or 
defined.  Certainly  there  would  be  no  common  problem  and  no 
difference  of  theory  without  such  initial  agreement  as  a  point  of 
reference  in  disagreeing. 

But  the  explicit  statement  of  this  starting  point  of  agreement 
encounters  a  practical  dilemma.  On  the  one  hand,  anything  can 
be  defined  in  terms  so  general  that  the  thing  is  bound  to  be  in- 
cluded: make  the  genus  large  enough  and  it  includes  anything. 
The  limit,  in  this  direction,  would  be  to  define  the  object  as  a  case 
of  being;  which  would  be  safe,  but  hardly  a  start  toward  deter- 
mining anything  about  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  least  advance 
toward  narrowing  the  meaning  incurs  a  very  rigorous  obligation 
to  produce  a  i)rinciplc  of  selection  which  shall  be  a  satisfactory 
logical  warrant  for  narrowing  it  in  just  the  way  selected,  since  this 
way  excludes  others  whose  claims  may  be  in  question.  The 
situation  is  thus  beset  with  the  pitfall  of  logical  presumption. 

There  are  three  quite  distinct  conceptions  of  philosophy,  in  the 
form  of  ill  criticized  assumption,  each  of  which  is  taken  by  its 
adherents  to  be  unquestionable — as  safe  as  the  concept  "being." 
I  will  word  them  thus:  (1)  An  absolute  evaluation  of  reality;  (2) 
A  revelation  of  reality  in  its  essential  nature;  (3)  A  comprehension 
of  the  meaning  of  reality. 


10  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [SO 

The  first  of  these  conceptions  is  that  of  Kant  and  Fichte  and 
those  philosophers  to  whom  reahty  seems  unrehited  to  appre- 
hending consciousness,  rehited  only  to  will.  Reality  is  neither 
directly  nor  indirectly  perceivable.  Knowledge  of  it  is  {K)ssible — 
if  the  term  is  proper  at  all— only  in  the  broadest  sense  of  "knowl- 
edge," the  sense  equivalent  to  "consciousness,"  within  which 
will  is  sharply  distinguished  from  two  more  or  less  receptive  or 
cognitive  modes,  tliinking  and  feeling.  Knowledge  of  reality  is 
thus,  for  this  type  of  philosopher,  a  practical,  i>er.sonal  evaluation 
of  it,  only;  a  moral  disposition  or  attitude. 

The  second  conception  is  Profes.sor  Berg.son's;  its  meaning  is  a 
peculiarly  intimate  acquaintance  with  reality.  It  is  a  relationshij) 
between  reality  and  consciousness  in  the  testhetic  mode,  con- 
sciousness as  the  quality-knowing  faculty,  ver>'  explicitly  dis- 
tinguished by  Bergson,  under  the  name  "intuitifui."  fn>m  the 
relation-knowing  or  intellectual  faculty. 

The  third  conception,  the  analytic  or  intellectualistic,  means 
knowledge  about  reality,  snch  knowledge  as  may  l)e  relatively 
independent  of  acquaintance.  J'lie  second  and  third  con(e|)tion.s 
are  distinct  from  each  other  only  in  emphasis,  and  may  l>e  in- 
definitely approximated  toward  eadi  other,  to  the  limit  of  nmtual 
indentity.  But,  historically,  tli<*  ])hiIosopher's  besetting  sin  of 
hypostasis  has  pushed  the  emphasis,  in  each  of  these  two  con- 
ceptions, to  so  vicious  an  extreme  that  they  contrast  witli  each 
other  sharply.  Pushed  to  such  extreme,  the  tliird  concei)tion  has 
been  stigmatized  by  adherents  of  the  second  as  "vicious"  con- 
ceptuaHsm  or  intellectualisin.  By  the  same  right,  the  intellec- 
tualist  may  denounce  intuitionism  as  ecpially  "  vicious. " 

To  these  three  conceptions  of  philosophy  this  is  common :  a 
relationship  between  reality  and  consciousness  which  is  ai>ogeal. 
Philosophy  is  at  any  rate  a  supreme  experience,  a  mode  of  con- 
sciousness which  is  eminent  over  other  modes.  But  this  initial 
generaUzation  is  too  indetermiiuite  to  constitute  a  satisfactory 
theory  of  the  nature  of  philosophy;  whereas  (for  the  other  horn  of 
the  dilemma),  the  above  attempts  at  greater  specificity  ap|)ear  to 
invoke  no  logical  principle,  but  rather  to  follow  a  deep-lying 
personal  instinct,  without  due  critical  reflection  on  it;  in  other 
words,  without  logical  justification  of  it.  The\-  all  l>eg  the 
question. 

Such  ill  criticized  assumption  concerning  the  nature  of  philos- 


81]  Mitchell:     Studies  in   Bergsoiia  Philosophy  11 

ophy  is  what  determines  a  philosopher's  "method"  in  distinction 
from  his  "doctrine."  The  names  voluntarism,  intuitionism  and 
rationalism  have  been  appUed  to  philosophies  whose  method  is  one 
or  other  of  the  three  outlined  above.  Religion,  art  and  science 
are  their  models,  respectively.  Under  voluntarism  fall  the  ro- 
mantic and  the  pietistic  philosophies,  wherein  value  is  all  that  is 
real,  and  personal  attitude  towards  value  is  the  only  mode  of 
consciousness  that  illuminates  reality.  Intuitionism  includes  rad- 
ical empiricism,  temporalism  and  mysticism.  Such  philosophies  are 
based  on  the  conviction  that  only  quality  is  real,  only  intuition  is 
knowledge.  And  under  rationalism  are  positivism  and  absolutism, 
in  which  reality  is  order  and  knowledge  is  reason. 

If  art,  science  and  rehgion  correspond  to  the  ancient  triad  feeling 
(intuition),  thought  (intellect)  and  will,  it  would  seem  either  that 
philosophy  must  be  consciousness  employed  in  one  or  more  of 
these  modes,  or  else  that  a  fourth  mode  of  consciousness,  co- 
ordinate with  these,  must  correspond  to  philosophy.  Such  a  mode 
has  not  been  discovered.  Philosophy  nuist  therefore  be  one 
or  two  or  all  three  of  tlic  above  things.  Can  analysis  of  that 
generalization  which  was  dorived  above  from  the  more  specific 
definitions  produce  a  logical  principle  capable  of  determining  the 
genuine  philosophic  method  among  the  three  modes  of  con- 
sciousness, feeling,  thought  and  will  ?  Yes,  such  analysis  of  the 
supremacy  which  is  a  feature  common  to  all  three  concep- 
tions of  philosophy  proves  unequivocally  that  philosophy  must  be 
a  function  of  intellect,  and  caiuiot  be  a  function  either  of  will  or 
of  intuition. 

This  would  not  be  the  case,  needless  to  say,  if  "supremacy" 
were  here  a  eulogism.  ?2ulogistically,  either  of  the  three  modes 
of  consciousness  has  e(iual  claim  to  supremacy.  That  mode  of 
con.sciousness  to  which  reality  is  most  interesting  is  supreme,  in 
the  eulogistic  sense,  and  this  depends  on  the  philosopher's  personal 
constitution.  To  the  man  of  dominating  intuition,  the  relations 
and  teleology  of  things  may  be  incidental  characters  of  them;  but, 
by  comparison  with  reality's  qualitative  aspect,  those  other  as- 
pects are  relatively  extrinisic  and  accidental.  In  whatever  sense 
it  may  not  be  true,  in  the  eulogistic  sense  it  is  true  that  such  a 
man's  supreme  experience  is  intuitional  rather  than  intellectual 
or  ethical.  Bergson's  psychological  life  seems  to  be  of  such  a 
type.     But,  for  the  man  of  ethical,  and  for  the  man  of  intellectual 


12  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [82 

prepossession,  supreme  experience  cannot  be  intuitional,  in  this 
sense  of  supreme.  Yet,  if  an  intuitional  bent  be  regarded  by  any- 
one as  a  hopeful  qualification  for  effective  philosophizing,  no  in- 
tuitionist  denies  to  the  man  in  whom  reason  or  will,  instead,  is 
paramount,  the  possibility,  by  proper  effort,  of  achieving  the 
genuinely  philosophic — that  is  to  say,  intuitional — activity.  And 
when  such  a  man  does,  in  spite  of  difficulty,  achieve  it,  it  has  the 
same  supremacy,  as  philosophy,  that  it  has  for  the  intuitionist, 
for  whom  it  is,  more  fortunately,  also  supremely  congenial  and 
"worth  while".  It  is  not  this  latter  supremacy,  therefore,  but 
the  other,  which  distinguishes  philosophy,  on  the  intuitionist 
conception;  and  that  other  supremacy  has  a  meaning  which  is 
thus  proved  to  be  independent  of  relation  to  any  constitutional 
prepossession  or  aptness.  If  philosophy  is  intuitional,  this  is  not 
because  intuition  is  any  man's  most  characteristic  faculty. 

And  so  of  the  two  other  modes  of  consciousness,  reason  and  will, 
in  which,  in  different  beings,  according  to  their  constitution, 
life  most  naturally  and  best  finds  realization:  for  each  of  these 
modes  of  consciousness,  as  for  the  intuitional  mode,  there  is  one 
sort  of  experience,  called  philosophy,  which  is  distinguished  by 
a  certain  supremacy  of  self-same  nature,  independent  of  any  dis- 
tinction of  personal  constitution  among  philosoi)hers.  The  vol- 
untarist,  indeed,  might  claim  a  peculiarly  eulogistic  sui)remacy 
for  volitional  experience  over  any  other  kind;  for  it  is  ethically 
supreme  for  all,  whatever  one's  constitutional  bent.  But  its 
ethical  supremacy  is  no  more  the  p/u7o.foy>///c(/?m/<?  of  volitional  ex- 
perience, on  the  voluntaristic  conception  of  philosophy,  than  is 
its  other  eulogistic  supremacy,  its  mere  congeniality,  for  the 
strongly  volitional  type  of  character.  For,  men  of  such  character 
may  be  conspicuously  deficient  in  philosophic  faculty  in  the  judg- 
ment of  all,  including  the  voluntarist  philosoj)hcr. 

Reason,  finally,  commands  recognition  of  supremacy,  among  the 
modes  of  consciousness,  in  another  sense,  a  sense  distinct  from  the 
imperative  or  ethical  supremacy  of  will.  The  sujjremacy  of  reason 
is  its  exclusive  reflectiveness;  and  reflectiveness  as  the  quale  of 
reason  is  the  same  character  as  criticalness;  that  is,  it  is  the  faculty 
of  judgment.  It  is  important  to  note  that  this  critical  reflective- 
ness is  a  differentia  of  reason;  it  is  not  a  character  of  intuition  nor 
of  will.  The  proof  is  that  reflection  is  the  substitution  of  a  re- 
lational for  a  substantive  object  of  consciousness,  and  relationality 


83]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  13 

is  nothing  else  than  rationality.  Thus,  if  feeling,  will  and  rational 
thought  are  conceptually  distinct,  reflectiveness  is  foreign  to  the 
first  two,  and  to  anything  coiirdinately  distinct  from  rational 
thought.  When  consciousness  is  employed  with  an  emphasis  on 
the  qualities  of  its  object,  in  distinction  from  aspects  of  value  and 
relation  (which  also  belong  to  any  object),  consciousness  is  in- 
tuitive, in  the  intuitionist  sense  of  the  term.  In  entering  a  con- 
sciousness, the  (jualities  become,  ipso  facto,  content  of  that 
consciousness,  taking  their  place  in  this  setting  under  the  name 
"sensations,"  or  ''.sense  data."  It  is  the  act  of  reflection  which 
"sets"  the  mind's  data  in  contexts;  which  is  aware  of  contexts, 
that  is,  and  of  the  setting  of  data  in  them.  It  is  the  reflective  act 
which  names  its  data  accordingly,  as  "quality"  or  "sensation", 
and  is  conscious  of  them  as  elements  of  their  relational  setting. 
Consciousness  is  volitional  when  its  focus  is  a  value.  In  the  con- 
text of  the  subject's  consciousness,  the  value  becomes  a  purpose. 
Thus  value  as  substantive  object  of  consciousness,  again,  is  object 
of  will  just  as  the  substantive  quality  was  object  of  intuition; 
while  value  as  element  in  the  relational  complex  in  which  it  is 
known  as  "purpose,"  is  object  of  reflection.  Reason,  then, — 
that  is  to  .say,  mind  active  in  the  relation-knowing  way — is  the 
mode  of  consciousness  in  virtue  of  which  mind  is  reflective,  crit- 
ical, judgment-forming;  and  it  is  a  confusion  among  defini- 
tions of  intuition,  will  and  reason,  to  attribute  reflectiveness  to 
intuition  or  to  will,  as  such.  The  peculiar  supremacy  of  reason 
which  inheres  in  reason's  reflectiveness  is  due  to  the  inclusion  of 
consciousness  itself  in  the  content  of  relational  consciousness  and 
of  no  other  mode  of  consciousness. 

Intuitionists  and  voluntarists,  the  same  as  intellectualists,  do, 
as  a  fact,  always  characterize  that  supremacy  which  distinguishes 
philosophy,  in  no  other  way  than  the  critical  way.  There  is  no 
dissent,  in  intuitionist  or  voluntarist  schools  of  philosophic  method, 
from  this  residual  core  of  meaning  in  the  conception  of  philosophy : 
by  universal  consent  philosophy  is  consciousness  (in  whatever 
mode)  sitting  in  judgment  on  its  own  findings;  philosophy  is 
critical  reflection.  And  therein  is  an  ultimateness  and  absolute- 
ness— in  a  word,  a  supremacy — which  belongs  to  philosophy,  on 
any  view  of  philosophy,  and  to  no  other  type  of  mental  activity. 
But  in  rationalism,  or  intellectualism,  alone,  it  is  recognized  that 
reflection,  as  such,  is  essentially  and  distinctively  rational. 


IJf.  IJnkersiiy  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [8Jf 

It  is,  then,  the  contention  of  this  essay  that  the  supremacy 
pecuhar  to  philosophy— which,  by  common  consent  of  volunta- 
rism and  intuitionism,  is  no  eulogistic  nor  even  ethical  supremacy, 
but  critical — decides  absolutely,  among  the  three  modes  of  con- 
sciousness, against  will  and  intuition  in  favor  of  intellect,  as  the 
organ  of  philosophy,  of  intellectualism  as  the  sole  genuinely 
philosophic  method.  Kant  called  his  voluntarism  the  "Critical 
Philosophy,"  to  distinguish  it,  as  genuine  piiil()soi)hy,  from  what 
would  be  but  failed  (because  it  was  not  critical)  to  be  philosophy. 
Critical  his  philosophy  is;  but  beca-ise  it  is  critical,  it  contrailicts 
its  own  voluntarism — the  assertion  that  reality  is  knowable  only 
in  obedience  of  will,  and  not  in  judgment.  A  contradiction;  for 
this  (the  gist  of  his  voluntarism)  is  a  judgment  whose  subje<-t  is 
reality.  The  inevitable  fundamental  intiUccluality  of  noumcnal 
knowledge  is  concealed,  for  Kant,  under  the  phrase  "postulate 
of  will."  A  postulate,  so  far  as  it  is  genuine  kn<)wle<lge,  has 
indeed  the  character  of  necessity,  bul  ifs  urcessily  is  simply 
the  fact  of  logical  implication. 

With  the  intuitionist  variety,  and  particularly  tlic  Borgsoniaii 
variety  of  anti-intellectualism,  this  essay  is  largely  to  be  con- 
cerned. At  this  point  I  merely  note  the  inevitable  contradiction 
in  Bergson's  intuitionism,  as  in  Kant's  voluntarism.  Intuition, 
Bergson  explains,  is  "instinct  that  has  become  disinterested,  self- 
conscious,  capable  of  reflecting  upon  its  object  and  of  enlarging  it 
indefinitely."^  Now,  consciousness  reflecting  upon  its  own  data  is 
criticism,  predication,  classification,  judgment — whatever  it  is, 
it  is  the  objectifying  of  the  data  of  consciousness,  a  thing  whith 
it  is  essential  to  instinct  or  intuition,  on  Bergson's  own  conception 
of  them,  never  to  do,  and  which,  i)recisely,  on  his  conception,  is 
the  distinguishing  function  of  intellect.  "Instinct  is  sympathy,  ' 
says  Bergson,  in  the  same  passage;  and  the  sen.se  in  which  in- 
stinct is  sympathy  is  lucidly  and  emiihatically  explained  as  just 
this,  that  there  is  no  distinction  of  subject  and  object,  in  instinct; 
they  are  identical.  Whereas,  intelligence  or  intellect  i.s  explicitly 
distinguished  by  him  from  instinct  jirimarily  in  the  disjunction 

1.  Creative  Evolution  p.  176.  I  have  itaUcizt-d  TcniH-tiiiK"  and  ohjccf  to  In- 
dicate the  contradiction  of  "instinct.  •  .\nd  since,  for  HerKson.  intuition  is  philo- 
sophic consciousness,  this  reflectiveness  which  lie  Imputes  to  It  is  no  accident,  no 
inadvertence.  Intuition  must,  indeed,  in  order  to  he  pliilosophlc.  he  reflective: 
that  is  to  say.  it  must  absolutely  contradict  its  own  nature.  (In  all  of  the  referenced 
to  Bergson's  works,  the  pages  mentioned  are  those  nf  the  English  translation.) 


85]  MitcheU:     Studies  in  Bery.son.s  Philosophy  15 

of  subject  and  object.  It  is  merely  to  turn  his  back  on  his  own 
use  of  these  terms  to  describe  philosophy  as  instinct  extending 
its  object  and  reflecting  upon  itself. 

That  tlie  case  of  philosophical  anti-intellectualism  is  a  hopeless 
paradox,  whether  in  voluntarism  or  in  intuitionism,  each  of  these 
methods  itself  best  proves  by  its  own  inevitable  intellectualism. 
The  terms  voluntarism,  intuitionism,  and  rationalism  express  no 
real  distinction  of  psychological  mode,  in  philosophizing,  since 
the  psyschology  of  every  philosophy  is  necessarily  characterized 
by  that  critical  reflectiveness  which  constitutes  philosophy  a 
function  of  intellect.  Philosophy  is  always  interpretation,  a 
function  alien  to  what  anybody  ever  meant  either  by  will  or  by 
intuition;  a  function  whose  es.sential  distinctness  from  both  those 
functions  is  attested  universally  in  such  .synonyms  of  "  interpreta- 
tion" as  judgment,  conception,  understanding,  reason. 

There  are,  it  is  true,  voluntaristic  and  intuitionistic,  philos- 
ophies of  the  highest  imi)ortance.  And  the  intention  of  their 
authors  is  to  distinguish  their  method  from  the  rationalistic 
method.  Arc  they  foredoomed  to  futility  on  this  account?  So 
far  as  this  intention  is  realized — yes,  unquestionably.  No  phi- 
losophy that  were  itself  a  function  either  of  will  or  of  intuition  is 
conceivable,  since  it  would  then  lack  the  es.sence  of  philosophy, 
which  is  critical  primacy.  That  philosophies  designated  by  the.se 
methodological  terms  may  be  invalu.il)lc  j)roducts,  it  is  necessary 
only  that  these  terms  apply  in  fact  not  to  the  psychological  method 
of  the  i)hilosophy  but  to  its  psychological  starting-point.  They 
express  a  constitutional  l)ias  in  the  philo.sopher,  who,  after  all, 
is  human.  To  some  the  (pialities  of  things;  to  others,  value; 
and,  finally,  to  other  some,  the  order  of  reality  is  the  "essence"  of 
reality.  Such  esscntialness  is  eulogism,  of  course.  For  it  is  an 
irreducible  psychological  fact  that  there  are  religious,  iesthetic 
and  .scientific  types  of  mind.  Each  to  his  bias;  each  to  his  taste. 
The  apogee  of  living  is  religion  to  the  first,  art  to  the  second, 
science  to  the  third.  Hence  the  illusion  that  philosophy,  which 
must  needs  l>e  exi^crience  supremely  critical,  is  experience  eulog- 
istically  sui)remc.  Is  not  this  illusion  chargeable  to  failure  to 
see  in  the.se  three  modes  of  consciousness  three  emphases  or 
biases  of  living?  To  the  lesthete,  certainly,  quahty  must  be 
realest  es.sence.     l^ut  it  cannot  be  so  to  the  zealot;  for,  to  him, 


IS  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [86 

that  is  value:  nor  to  the  intellectuahst ;  to  him  it  is  order. 
If  sesthete  and  zealot  will  philosophize,  they  are  at  this  dis- 
advantage with  the  wise  man,  that  their  philosophy  can  do  no 
more,  in  expressing  the  nature  of  this  "realest  essence"  of  reaUty, 
than  the  wise  man's  rationalism  may  do — discourse  about  it, 
interpret  it.  Philosophy  indeed  never  can,  and  never  should 
aspire  to  enter  into  the  inner  nature  of  reality  in  any  such  sense  as 
the  immediatism  of  Bergson  and  James  summons  it  to  do.  There 
is  art  and  there  is  rehgion  for  that.  It  is  not  clear  how  the  qual- 
itative or  how  the  teleological  aspect  of  reality  is  more  internal  to 
it  than  its  relational  aspect;  but,  at  any  rate,  philosophy  ha.s  its  own 
interest,  and  that  is  distinct  from  those  of  art  and  religion. 
Wlierefore  the  own  proper  interest  of  art  or  of  religion  is  not 
served  in  their  philosophy;  in  their  philosophy  they  deny  them- 
selves. The  efforts  of  such  philosophies  to  wrest  from  reality,  in 
a  non-intellectual  way,  its  secret,  must  be  rather  superhuman. 
This  characterization  is  hardly  a  burlcstjue  of  Bcrgson's  own 
observations  on  his  method,  for  it  is  little  less  than  the  repudiation 
of  our  natural  constitution,  to  wjiich  he  exhorts  us.-  But,  as 
with  Kant,  so  with  Bergson,  j)rodigies  of  subtlety  fail  to  produce 
a  revelation  of  truth  that  is  so  subtle  as  to  l)e  inarticulate  because 
immediate,  or  that  does  not  lend  itself  lo  (iiscussion  and  interpre- 
tation. Or,  if  this  is  not  to  be  looked  for  in  a  j)liil()sophy  which  is 
*a  method  rather  than  a  doctrine,'  neither  is  there  any  sugges- 
tion how  such  revelation  may  be  socialized,  rciulered  human;  or 
even,  in  fact,  how  it  can  assume  meaniny,  moaning  to  the  philoso- 
pher himself  (which  is  surely  indispensable  to  truth),  without  be- 
coming predication — assertion  and  denial;— that  is  to  say,  with- 
out becoming  judgment.  If  humans  make  suj)erhuman  effort,  it 
should  not  be  surprising  if  the  result  is  self-contradiction. 


2.     See  especially  Creative  Evolution,  pp.  191-2  aud  266. 


Chapter   II 
bergson's  critique  of  pure  reason 

\Miat,  then,  is  called  philosophic  "method"  and  is  distinguished 
thereby  from  "doctrine,"  is  really,  in  fact,  always  the  cardinal 
principle  of  the  content  of  the  philosophy  in  question,  its  funda- 
mental doctrine.  If  this  doctrine  is  acceptable  to  reason,  if  it  is 
reasonable,  logical  princij)les  must  determine  it.  No  anti-in- 
tellectualist  philosophy  legitimately  evades  the  rules  of  the  game 
of  dialectic  by  the  representation  that  it  is  a  'method  rather  than 
a  doctrine. '  For  this  is  the  game  that  anyone  plays  who  under- 
takes to  show,  by  reasonal)le  discourse,  why  reality  and  knowledge 
conform  to  a  certain  definition,  or  (the  same  mental  procedure) 
why  they  do  not  conform  to  other  definitions.  Since  dialectic 
is  just  significant  discourse  with  a  meaning  to  be  judged,  it  may 
vary  in  form  l)etween  any  degree  of  syllogistic  baldness,  at  one 
extreme,  and  of  suggestive  sul)tlety  at  the  other.  It  is  dialectic 
if  it  is  constituted  of  statements,  explicit  or  implied,  which  relate  to 
each  other. 

There  is,  therefore,  I  say,  a  misleading  irrelevance  in  the  char- 
acterization which  Bergson  himself  has  set  the  fashion  of  attribut- 
ing to  his  philosophy,  the  characterization  of  it  as  rather  a  method 
than  a  system  of  doctrine.  A  method  implies  a  system,  that  is 
to  say  an  ordered  conviction  about  the  nature  of  reality  and 
knowledge.  Such  a  system  is  essential  to  any  meaning  in  Berg- 
son's method. 

Intellectualism  in  philosophy  implies  the  conviction  that  the 
parts  of  reality  are  connected  together  in  thinkable  ways;  that  a 
comprehensive  understanding  of  things  as  a  connected  system  or 
unity  is  therefore  theoretically  possible;  if  actually  impossible, 

17 


18  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [88 

this  is  merely  because  of  the  endlessness  of  relationsliips  and  the 
limitedness  of  any  actual  thinker's  time  and  strength.  But  in 
fact  even  human  finitude  is  no  obstacle  to  a  comprehension  of 
the  principles  of  reality.  Detail  is  immaterial  to  the  unity  of 
such  a  view. 

One  of  the  sayings  attributed  to  Professor  James  is  that  there 
is  one  thing  you  can  always  pronounce  with  assurance,  upon 
any  philosophical  system,  in  advance  of  hearing  a  word  of  it, 
and  that  is  that  it  is  false.  This  suggests  at  any  rate,  very 
well,  the  meaning  of  philosoi)hioal  anti-intellectualism,  which  im- 
plies the  conviction  contradictor%'  to  intellectualism,  to  wit  that 
the  parts  of  reality  are  not  connected  in  thinkable  ways. 

The  connectedness  of  the  intellectualist's  universe  may  have 
any  degree  of  significance  or  casualness.  A  mere  "and"  may 
express  much  of  it,'  Intellectualism  may  be  as  pluralistic  in  this 
sense  as  you  like,  or  as  monistic.  lint  if  things  are  a  universe  in 
any  such  sense  that  they  are  comprehensible  in  intellect's  dis- 
cursive way,  which  anti-intellectualism  denie.s — on  such  a  hy- 
pothesis anti-intellectualisni  an<l  intellectualism  have  commonly 
agreed  that  some  principle  is  embodied  in  this  total  comprehcn- 
sibleness,  a  supreme  induction,  which  would  constitute  the  final 
interpretation  of  any  fact.  Like  a  master-key,  it  woidd  oi)eM 
all  the  chambers  of  the  many-mansioned  universe.  Every  [)hi- 
losopher,  as  a  fact,  has  some  controUing  thought  which  has  the 
value,  for  him,  of  such  a  supreme  principle.  Ibit  always,  it  seems, 
there  are  doors  which  the  master-key  will  not  unlock.  It  is  the 
conviction  of  intellectualism  that  this  is  because  the  maker  of 
the  key  has  missed  them,  and  so  left  them  out  of  account  in 
fashioning  it;  while  anti-intellectualism  believes  it  is  an  illusion 
to  see  the  situation  as  a  case  of  locks  to  be  turne<I  by  a  key, 
at  all.  Entrance  into  possession  of  reality  is  otherwise  condi- 
tioned, altogether;  the  procedure,  in  con.sequence,  is  radically 
different  from  this.  But  it  is,  I  think,  a  true  historical  general- 
ization that  the  success  with  which  a  j)liilosopher,  of  whatever 
method,  avoids  a  supreme  principle  of  interjjretation,  corresjwnds 
exactly  with  the  success  with  which  he  avoids  being  a  philo.sopher 
at  all.     I  suppose  Omar  Khayyam  and  Aristippus  the  Cyrenaic 


3.     Cf.     R.  B.  Perry  s  Pnsmt  Philosophical  Tfiidencifs.  thv  first   two  8.H-tlun!» 
of  Chapter  XI. 


89]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  BergsorCs  Philosophy  19 

are  two  of  the  least  unifying  philosophers  of  history;  yet  their 
philosophy,  like  that  of  any  absolutist,  can  be  resumed  in  a  single 
idea,  Omar  has  uttered  it  in  one  of  his  own  famous  sentences: 
"Oh  take  the  cash,  and  let  the  credit  go!" 

Aside  from  the  presence,  in  each,  of  a  generative  principle, 
there  is  little  enough  in  common  between  the  anti-intellectualism 
of  Omar  and  that  of  Henri  Bergson.  If  critics  have  been  able 
to  find  seeds  of  skepticism  and  of  pessimism  in  Bergson,*  these 
characters  are  at  any  rate  foreign  to  any  intention  visible  in  its 
author.  No  more  positive  philosophy,  in  its  intention,  was  ever 
composed.  The  positiveness  of  its  name,  intuitionism,  is  alto- 
gether proper.  Its  significance,  to  be  sure,  is  sharply  defined  by 
its  negative  relation  to  intcllectualism,  and  therefore  I  stated  it 
negatively  above  as  the  thesis  that  the  parts  of  reality  are  not 
connected  in  a  thinkable  way.  But  the  intuitionist  would  readily 
admit:  if  not  in  a  thinkable  way,  then  in  no  way,  evidently. 
And,  again,  if  not  connected  at  all,  no  more  are  the  parts  of 
reality  (liscoiin<?cted,  since  any  disconnection  between  things  is 
only  their  particular  mode  of  connection.  The  fact  is,  reality 
ha.s  no  parts,  and  that  is  just  why  intellect,  which  sees  parts  in 
everything,  is  alien  and  blind  to  the  true  nature  of  reality.  Still 
one  may  object  that  intellect  is  itself  a  fact.  What  possible 
meaning  can  there  be  in  .saying  that  any  fact  is  alien  to  reality? 
As  Bergson  himself  has  said,  we  swim  in  reality,  and  cannot 
possibly  get  clear  of  it.  We  cannot  talk,  we  cannot  think,  we 
cannot  act  about  nothing. 

The  answer  to  this  objection  is  the  master  principle  of  Bergson's 
metaphysics:  reaUty  is  life.  Knowledge  is  "sympathetic"  living. 
If  intellect  is  real,  so  is  every  abstraction,  e.  g.,  the  inside  of  your 
hat.  The  inside  and  the  hat  itself  are  at  any  rate  real  in  senses 
so  importantly  different  that  "real"  and  "unreal"  hardly  ex- 
aggerate the  contrast.  Intellect,  says  Bergson,  is  the  cross- 
sectioning  of  reality.  There  is  no  thickness,  no  concreteness  in 
it.  It  exists  as  much  in  inert  matter  as  in  consciousness;  in  fact, 
it  exists  in  neither  except  in  the  sense  in  which  a  surface  can  be 
said  to  exist  in  a  solid  body.  What  is  the  surface  in  itself?  Why, 
nothing;  it  is  an  abstract  aspect  of  the  body.     The  body  is  real. 


4.     J.  W.  Scott,  Pessimism  of  Bergson,  Ilibbrrt  Journal,   XI,  99-116.      See  also 
below  p.  94. 


20  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [90 

but  its  aspects  are  not  real,  because  they  do  not  constitute  the 
body — no  multiplication  or  addition  of  them  does  so.  No  millions 
of  surfaces  make  any  thickness.  In  this  sense  the  surface  is  other 
than  and  alien  to  the  real  nature  of  the  body.  And  so  other  mani- 
festations of  intellect — space,  juxtaposition,  extension,  number, 
part  out  of  part — have  no  existence,  as  the  surface  has  none. 

As  facts,  nevertheless,  what  are  they?  How  are  they  facts? 
What  is  their  raison  d'  etre  ?  Their  raison  d'  eire  is  a  faculty  life 
has,  the  faculty  of  action.  They  are  the  ways  in  which  life  acts. 
They  are  not  concrete  entities  In  this,  they  are  alien  to  the 
concreteness  of  reality.  Try  to  reconstruct  reality  out  of  such 
abstractions,  and  the  result  is  a  construction  like  that  of 
geometrical  imagination.  You  have  constructed  an  abstract 
symbol  of  the  reaUty,  which  symbol  the  mind,  preoccupied  with 
its  practical  bias,  can  mistake  for  the  reality  only  because  it  is 
so  preoccupied. 

^Vhen  we  physically  take  apart  and  put  together,  our  manual 
activity  has  the  same  unreality  of  abstractness  as  that  of  our 
intellectual  analyses  and  syntheses.  It  is  the  latter  outwardly 
expressed,  intellect  externalized.  Wherever  we  find  life,  we  are 
experiencing  reahty.  But  when  this  occurs,  we  are  never  analyzing 
nor  synthesizing.  The  more  one  divests  himself  of  practical 
bias,  and  regards  his  object  not  as  an  object  for  the  realization  of 
any  possible  activity  of  his  own,  but  as  it  is  in  itself — in  proportion, 
that  is,  as  one  gets  its  character  as  a  case  of  life — those  unreal, 
spatial  aspects  of  it  yield  to  an  aspect  which  has  nothing  in  common 
with  them.  The  parts  of  an  anatomical  model,  a  -papier  machS 
manikin,  you  may  separate  and  put  together  again.  An  or- 
ganism, as  such,  a  manifestation  of  life,  could  not  be  dissected  and 
recomposed  in  its  living  reality.  What  is  it  that  makes  an  or- 
ganism alive,  a  true  reahty?  This,  that  ever>'  so-called  part 
has  a  function  which  is  so  essential  to  the  true  function  of  the 
whole  that  one  is  present  or  absent  with  the  other.  They  coincide. 
How,  then,  could  you  possibly  dissect  out  a  part  of  an  organism? 
Once  recognize,  what  is  unquestionable,  that  any  function  of  it 
comcides  in  this  way  with  the  function  of  the  whole,  and  your 
analyzing  operation  is  prevented  absolutely.  Obey  the  rule  that 
everything  which  contributes  at  all  to  the  function  of  the  part 
shall  be  taken,  and  everything  else  left,  and  you  are  in  Shylock's 
position  after  Portia's  judgment:  if  you  want  the  flesh  you  will 


91]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  21 

have  to  take  blood  with  it;  but  you  are  not  entitled  to  the  blood. 
It  is  even  more  hopeless  than  that.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  skill 
with  your  hand.  You  cannot  make  the  analysis  mentally,  in- 
tellectually. It  is  not  a  matter  of  impairing  or  destroying  the 
function,  of  injuring  or  killing  the  organism.  You  cannot  begin 
the  operation,  not  even  on  the  corpse.  The  first  incision  separates 
cells  whose  functions  were  inseparably  one,  for  there  is  no  cell 
in  the  body  that  is  not  in  organic  union  with  every  other  cell. 

If  there  is  nothing  of  the  nature  of  mosaic  composition  in  the 
living  structure,  this  fact  is  one  with  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing 
mechanical  in  its  functioning.  It  is  not  actuated  from  without, 
as  every  machine  is  actuated  which  is  not  alive;  nor  is  its  function- 
ing, like  that  of  such  machines,  an  assemblage  of  functions  prede- 
termined so  far  as  the  machine  itself  is  concerned — prede- 
termined, that  is  to  say,  except  for  intervention  from  without; 
unalterable,  as  unstartable,  without  external  cause.  The  character 
of  living  function  is  suggested  by  the  word  "focalization."  There 
is  a  perfectly  indivisible  concert  of  function  throughout  the  or- 
ganism, in  every  one  of  its  infinite  varieties  of  activity.  When 
the  engineer  reverses  his  engine,  or  otherwise  alters  its  mode  of 
operation,  what  he  really  does  is  to  alter  the  structure  of  the 
machinery.  The  machinery  has  been  specially  constructed  with 
a  view  to  unmaking  and  remaking  its  nature  more  or  less  quickly 
and  conveniently;  that  is,  its  parts  can  be  displaced  and  replaced 
with  reference  to  each  other.  Some  parts  are  "thrown  out  of 
gear"  and  shifted  back.  And  then  everything  returns  to  its  former 
state.  Not  so  in  life.  The  functioning  of  an  organism  never 
remains  quite  the  same  in  two  consecutive  instants.  There  is 
an  incessantly  moving  emphasis  or  focus  in  it.  Now  one  of  its 
potentialities  of  function  is  primary  or  focal,  now  another.  But 
none  can  ever  cease  and  then  be  resumed.  In  this  case,  to  cease 
is  not  to  be  thrown  out  of  gear,  but  to  die,  to  perish,  to  be 
annihilated.  In  everj'  phase  of  the  life  activity  of  the  organism, 
all  its  functions  are  operative,  subsidiary  and  subservient  in 
varying  degrees  to  that  one  which  for  the  moment  is  the  focus 
of  all.  Thus  the  organic  or  vital  focus,  in  its  physiological  aspect 
of  activity  and  in  its  psychological  aspect  of  attention,  is  never 
at  rest.  The  modulation  is  not  like  the  sudden  transformations 
in  a  kaleidoscope.  The  evolutions  do  not  take  place  in  the  manner 
suggested  by  the  phrase  "Presto,  change!"     Modulation  is  the 


22  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [92 

word  that  describes  the  process.  Or,  as  Bergson  phrases  it, 
the  change  is  continuous,  incessant,  an  interpenetrating  flow  of 
processes,  in  which  analysis  can  make  no  beginning  and  no  sep- 
aration; in  which  analysis,  in  fact,  is  absolutely  impotent.  If 
the  eye  is  that  which  sees,  the  ear  that  which  hears,  and  so  on. 
it  is  really  the  organism  entire,  and  no  special,  locally  differentiat- 
ed part  of  it  that  is  the  organ.  Those  so-called  parts  which, 
with  our  false  intellectualism,  we  name  the  eye  or  other  organ, 
are,  in  their  reality,  focal  aspects  of  the  entire  organism,  the 
organism  seen  with  a  certain  restriction  or  limitation  of  interest. 

But,  now,  how  can  one  make  any  discourse  about,  say,  an 
animal  organism — indeed,  how  can  this  become  an  object  of 
perception  at  all — without  its  lending  it.self  to  that  sort  of  division 
into  real  parts  which  Bergson  says  is  an  intellectual  falsification 
of  its  true  nature,  and  therefore  not  true  knowledge  of  the  thing.' 
When  I  look  at  a  living  body,  do  I  not  see  it  occupying  space? 
Is  it  not,  then,  measurable?  Is  not  one  such  body  larger  than 
another?  Suppose  cutting  out  parts  of  a  body  does  alter  or  kill 
the  organism:  they  can,  neverless,  l)e  cut  out,  and  are  therefore 
parts?  If,  after,  and  because  of,  being  cut  out,  they  are  then  not 
parts  of  the  organism  from  which  they  were  cut,  still,  they  are 
constituents  of  its  volume.  Surely,  our  ordinary  speech  about 
this  part  and  that  part  of  our  bodies,  is  not  all  false? 

Bergson 's  answer  is  uncomi)romising:  our  ordinary  perception 
and  speech  does  falsify  the  nature  of  reality,  but  (in  spite  of  the 
apparent  paradox)  does  not  mislead.  For  our  ordinary  perception 
and  speech  have  nothing  to  do  with  knowing.  Perception  is 
a  different  function  of  life — it  is  action.  Our  percepts  are  the 
ways  in  which  reality  can  factor  in  our  activities.  Those  dis- 
sected organs,  you  say,  are  at  least  so  nuich  of  the  entire  volume 
of  the  organism:  but  the  words  are  no  sooner  spoken  than  their 
falseness  shows  itself.  If  the  organism  ever  had  volume,  it  cer- 
tainly has  not,  now — neither  volume  nor  anything  else.  The 
fact  is,  the  only  meaning  there  is  in  its  ever  possessing  volume 
while  it  still  exists,  is  just  that  you  might  enter  into  activity  with 
it  in  such  and  such  ways— as  that,  for  instance,  of  hacking  it  up. 
Perception,  our  "virtual"  or  potential  activity  on  reaUty,  is  an 
abstract  aspect  of  it;  what  it  is  in  itself  is  another  matter,  and 
the  only  knowledge  of  this  is  that  sympathetic  union  with  it  in 
which  space  and  parts  disappear  in  an  "interpenetrating  flow" 


Uo]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  23 

not  of  things  nor  of  parts,  but  of  process,  of  ceaseless  change. 
Now,  quality  is  just  the  fact  of  change,  as  anyone  may  test  for 
himself  by  introspection.  Reality  as  it  is  in  itself,  therefore, 
the  true  nature  of  reality,  is  quality.  Relations  are  external 
views  or  aspects,  no  nuiltiplication  of  which  makes  any  start  at 
constituting  a  concrete  reality. 

There  is  one  more  reflection  on  Bergson's  account  of  intellect, 
which,  like  tho.se  made  above,  he  anticipates  and  tries  to  meet, 
.so  far  as  it  seems  an  objection  to  denying  cognitive  validity  to 
intellect.  The  attempt  at  this  point,  however,  is  not  very  con- 
vincing. The  point  I  mean  is  this:  The  ways  in  which  reality 
can  factor  in  my  activities  are  by  that  warrant  true  characters  of 
reality.  One  may  cheerfully  add:  even  as  the  inside  of  ray  hat 
is,  after  all,  a  true  character  of  my  hat.  For,  if  reality  were 
different,  it  could  not  factor  so  in  my  activity — in  other  words, 
which  would  also  l)e  the  words  of  plain  common  sense,  I  should 
perceive  it  differently,  on  Bergson's  own  conception  of  what  it 
means  to  perceive.  The  situation  is  this:  Reality  does,  indeed, 
possess  tho.se  interesting  aspects  of  changing  process  and  un- 
dividedness  which  Bergson  is  so  preoccupied  with  and  which  he  has 
brought  to  light  with  exquisite  skill.  This  is  one  of  two  equally 
important  truths  about  reality.  The  other  Bergson  is  simply 
blind  to,  and  that  is  tliat  reality  also  possesses  an  aspect  of  per- 
manence and  divisibility.  Does  this  seem  a  contradiction?  It 
is  no  more  a  contradiction  than  that  a  curve  is  both  convex  and 
concave.  It  is  not  only  not  a  contradiction:  each  of  these  an- 
tipodally  opposite  aspects  of  reality  is  absolutely  indispensable 
to  the  ver>'  conception  of  the  other,  just  as  concavity  is  indis- 
pensable to  the  conception  of  convexity,  east  to  the  conception 
of  west,  right  to  the  conception  of  left —  and  vice  versa.  This 
point  is  resumed  below  (pp.  77-0,96).  The  object  in  view  at  present 
is  to  see  how  the  philosopher's  method  is  really  his  primary 
doctrine,  in  which  object  I  am  not  in  controversy  with  anyone, 
so  far  as  I  know;  but  al.so  to  see  how  an  anti-intellectualist  method 
depends  upon  a  purely  arbitrary,  or  rather  constitutional,  psy- 
chological prepos-session  for  a  certain  emphasis  of  living. 

I  .said  that  Bergson  is  entirely  awake  to  the  aptness  of  the 
objection  just  raised  to  his  account  of  intellect.  In  a  sense, 
in  certain  passages,  he  even  seems  to  grant  the  truth  of  the  con- 


S4  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [9^ 

tention.  Action,  he  acknowledges,  for  instance,*  can  be  involved 
only  with  reahty;  and  consequently  the  forms  of  perception  and 
the  categories  of  intellect  (which  are  those  forms  rendered  elabor- 
ately precise)  "touch  something  of  the  absolute."  Sound  truth, 
assuredly!  The  fitness  of  reahty  to  enter  as  object  into  those 
active  relationships  which  are  the  perceptive  and  intellectual 
categories  makes  the  categories  as  genuinely  own  to  the  true, 
essential  nature  of  objective  reality  as  to  the  nature  of  subjective 
intelligence.  That  the  categorization  of  reality  depends  on  the 
real  object's  being  in  relation  to  something  else  than  itself  is 
nothing  pecuhar  to  this  (the  categorical)  character  of  reality. 
The  same  condition  is  common  to  every  character  of  reality. 
The  qualitative  aspect  of  reality,  which  Bergson  usually  regards 
as  the  nature  of  reality  "in  itself,"  depends  no  less  than  its  re- 
lational or  categorical  aspect  on  the  rclatedness  of  the  object. 
For  the  qualities  of  things  are  nothing  l)ut  the  differences  they 
make — to  consciousness  or  to  other  things.  Reality  not  in  re- 
lation is  simply  a  phrase  without  a  vestige  of  meaning.  Reality 
"in  itself"  in  such  a  sense  is  merely  nonsense.  It  would  seem, 
therefore,  as  if  Bergson  should  account  the  intellectual  mode  of 
consciousness,  which  does  indeed  "touch  something  of  the  ab- 
solute," as  knowledge  of  precisely  the  same  metaphysical  status 
as  a  mode  which  touches  anything  else  of  the  absolute.  It  is 
one  thing  for  a  mode  of  consciousness  to  be  uncongenial  or  un- 
interesting to  you  or  me;  it  is  another  for  it  to  be  invalid.  The 
uncongeniality  of  a  mode  of  consciousness  depends  on  personal 
idiosyncrasy;  the  invalidity  of  a  mode  of  consciousness  depends 
on  the  logical  nature  of  being. 

As  a  fact,  however,  perhaps  because  this  preference  between 
two  aspects  of  the  nature  of  reality  depends  so  obviously  on  per- 
sonal bias  instead  of  logical  principles,  Bergson  vacillates,  in 
a  hopelessly  confused  and  confusing  way,  all  through  his  writings, 
between  two  conceptions  of  reality.  First,  reality  is  of  one  nature, 
namely  life,  which  is  pure  quality,  change,  or  duration  (the  four 
terms  are  actually  synonyms  to  Bergson),  and  knowledge  of  which 
can  be  only  sympathetic  intuition  of  it,  while  intellect  is  merely 
"an  appendage  of  action,"  and  not  knowledge  at  all.  In  the 
other  conception  reality  is  cleft  into  a  dualism  more  unutterably 


5.     Creative  Evolution,  p.  xi. 


96] 


Mitchell:     Studies  in  Berg  son's  Philosophy 


25 


absolute  than  that  of  Descartes.  Life  is  one  kind  of  reality; 
inert  matter  is  the  other.  Intuition  knows  the  former;  intellect 
really  does  Txnow  the  latter  ('touching  something  of  the  absolute'), 
and  knowledge  is  therefore  not  intuition  only.  Although  this 
vacillation  confuses  issues  in  every  one  of  Bergson's  books,  the 
first  conception  is  more  characteristic,  upon  the  whole,  of  Time 
and  Free  Will  and  of  Creative  EvoltUion;  the  other  conception  is 
pretty  consistently  expounded  in  Matter  and  Memory.  The  sphere 
of  intellect  is   restricted;  its  cognitive  validity  is  not  explicitly  . 

denied  within  this  sphere,  but  only  within  the  domain  of  life.  J^1,^^^ 

sure,  snice  life  exhausts  reality,  the  sphere  allotted  to  in- 
tellect  isnorTw*l»Jxliich  would  seem  to  imply  that  intellect  fails 
to  know.  The  validi ty  oTTti LcllcoUiaLconsciousness  is  thus,  in 
effect,  denied  equally  in  either  case.  The  onTy^rJiffeignce  is  that 
the  denial  is  conscious  and  explicit  in  one  case,  more  or  lesS 
consciously  implied  in  the  other. 


l\y 


Chapter  III 

THE  ANCIENT  PREJUDICE  AGAINST  ANALYSIS 

The  restrictive  conception  of  intellect  is  a  very  old  one.  The  in- 
compatibiUty  of  intellect  and  life,  as  cognitive  organ  and  object, 
is  certainly  as  old  a  belief  as  the  era  of  the  Sophists.  It  can  be 
said,  that  is,  with  historical  certainty,  that,  from  the  time  of 
Protagoras — and  I  have  no  doubt  it  has  been  tme  ever  since  the 
first  philosopher,  whoever  he  was,  undertook  to  make  an  examin- 
ation of  the  universe  as  one  thing — it  has  always  been  true  that 
many  of  the  best  minds  have  been  convinced,  by  the  futile  results 
of  such  undertakings,  that  the  universe  as  one  thing,  on  one 
hand,  and  intellect,  on  the  other,  make  a  pair  as  incompatible, 
in  the  relation  of  cognitive  organ  and  object,  as  the  faint  star 
and  the  fovea:  you  have  an  organ  and  an  object  which  by  nature 
are  unsuited  to  each  other.  That  kind  of  organ  cannot  see  that 
kind  of  object.  Not  that  the  faint  star  is  invisible,  but,  to  see 
it,  you  musn't  look!  Then  it  will  swim  into  the  field  of  the  organ 
that  is  made  to  see  it,  the  retinal  tissue  surrounding  the  fovea. 
Thus  it  is  not  a  question  of  human  finitude  or  limitation.  The 
formulae  of  intellect,  applied  to  such  an  object,  are  mere  silliness, 
reducible,  as  Kant  showed,  to  all  manner  of  antinomy  and  par- 
adox. Not  only  that,  but  whatever  is  most  important  and  inter- 
esting within  this  whole,  everything  concerning  the  nature  and 
meaning  of  concrete  cases  of  life,  eludes  antl  baffles  conceptual 
statement, — which  is  the  only  kind  of  statement  there  is, — in- 
evitably eludes  it,  like  smoke  in  a  child's  hand  who  tries  to  catch 
it.  Your  essences  or  definitions,  of  life  or  any  of  its  manifesta- 
tions, are  stuff  and  nonsense,  not  inadequate,  but  absurd.  >Miat 
logical  sentence  has  ever  been  uttered  that,  upon  the  least  re- 
flection, does  not  fail  to  develop  into  a  grotesquely  false  cari- 

26 


97]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  BergsorCs  Philosophy  27 

cature  when  applied  to  any  genuine  phase  or  interest  of  hfe, 
great  or  small — whether  God,  freedom,  immortality,  or  the  heart 
of  a  woman,  or  of  a  child,  or  of  a  man  (to  take  them  in  a  descending 
order  of  their  unsearchableness)  ?  You  may  labor  your  conception 
with  prodigious  precision — the  truth  of  the  matter  is  always 
beyond,  when  you  are  speaking  of  matters  that  are  real. 

This  is  the  artist's  temper  of  mind  when  the  artist  has  inad- 
vertently gulped  down  a  noxious  dose  of  metaphysics.  It  is  the 
feeling  of  the  novehsts,  the  dramatists,  the  poets,  that  Bergson 
voices :  life  may  be  lived — nobly  or  basely,  courageously  or  coward- 
ly, truly  or  falsely; — and  the  flavor  and  significance  of  life  may  be 
heightened,  life  may  be  realized  more  abundantly,  in  artistic 
activity,  which  is  jjutting  oneself  into  one's  object,  making  it 
become  not  an  object,  indentifying  oneself  with  it.  But  one 
thing  is  not  given  to  man,  and  that  is  to  interpret  life. 

Everyone  is  familiar  with  the  telling  dramatic  force  of  the  device 
which  consists  in  involving  a  philosophical  hero,  a  man  addicted 
to  principles  of  high  generality,  in  sudden  overwhelming  emotional 
chaos,  in  which  all  his  j)hilosophy  goes  to  smash.  The  refrac- 
toriness of  sexual  love,  for  instance,  to  all  his  theories  is  such  a 
delicious  redudio  ad  absurdum  of  the  theories.  First  you  make 
your  philosopher  develop  his  maxims,  in  a  besotted,  fatuous  con- 
viction of  their  infallibility;  then  a  particularly  impossible  she 
enters,  one  who  is  conspiciously  unfitted,  by  artlessness  or  dis- 
abilities of  worldly  station,  for  the  upsetting  of  principles  great 
and  high.  The  philosopher  goes  through  his  paces,  eating  his 
maxims  whole,  with  unction;  and  you  have  the  spectacle  of  Life 
rising  serene,  untouched,  above  the  futilities  of  theory.  The 
theory  doesn't  work.  The  obvious  conclusion  is  that  there  is 
some  fundamental  incommensurability  between  it  and  the  simple 
facts  of  Hfe  that  can  flout  it  so.  Simon  the  Jester  is  a  very 
dehghtful  example  of  what  I  mean.  Simon  is  bound  to  come  to 
grief,  he  is  so  smugly  philosophical.  The  wise  novel-reader 
knows  what  to  expect.  Not  that  philosophy  is  not  an  ornament 
to  a  man,  a  civilizing,  disciplining  exercise.  All  that  is  one  thing, 
but  acting  as  if  such  notions  apply  is  quite  another.  This  good 
philosophical  chap  gives  the  result  of  his  philosophy  in  regulating 
his  life,  as  follows : 

"Surely  no  man  has  fought  harder  than  I  have  done  to  con- 
vince himself  of  the  deadly  seriousness  of  existence;  and  surely 


28  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [9S 

before  the  feet  of  no  man  has  Destiny  cast  such  stumbling-blocks 
to  faith.  .  .  No  matter  what  I  do,  I'm  baffled.  I  look  upon 
sorrow  and  say,  'Lo,  this  is  tragedy!'  and  hey,  presto!  a  trick  of 
lightening  turns  it  into  farce.  I  cry  aloud,  in  perfervid  zeal,  '  Life 
is  real,  life  is  earnest,  and  the  apotheosis  of  the  fantastic  is  not  its 
goal, '  and  immediately  a  grinning  irony  comes  to  give  the  lie  to  my 
credo. 

"Or  is  it  that,  by  inscrutable  decree  of  the  Almighty  Powers, 
I  am  undergoing  punishment  for  an  old  unregenerate  point  of 
view,  being  doomed  to  wear  my  detested  motley  for  all  eternity, 
to  stretch  out  my  hand  forever  to  grasp  realities  and  find  I  can 
do  naught  but  beat  the  air  with  my  bladder;  to  listen  with  strained 
ear  perpetually  expectant  of  the  music  of  the  spheres,  and  catch 
nothing  but  the  mocking  jingle  of  the  bells  on  my  fool's  cap? 

"  I  don't  know.     I  give  it  up. " 

Giving  it  up  is  obviously  the  moral,  here.  The  change  of  at- 
titude implied  in  the  last  words  marks  the  beginning  of  an  era 
of  glorious  fulfilment  of  life  in  the  former  philosopher's  historj'. 
What  was  necessary  was  that  he  should  stop  theorizing  and  learn 
to  live.  That  is,  philosophy,  as  supreme  experience,  is  the  art 
of  living.  It  is  the  artist  that  really  knows,  that  knows  inwardly 
and  truly.  The  genuine  philosopher  is  the  artist  in  living.  Th<* 
intellectualist  philosopher  is  a  dissector  of  life's  defunct  remains. 

The  nature  of  the  opposition  between  the  two  modes  of  con- 
sciousness called  intuition  and  intellect  is  discussed  in  the  chapter 
on  Bergson's  epistemology.  The  intuitionist  philosopher  is  such 
never  for  logical  reasons,  always  for  temperamental  reasons.  lie 
is  a  man  to  whom  life  is  richer  and  fuller,  more  self-fulfilling,  more 
natural,  in  the  intuitional  mode  of  consciousness  than  in  the 
intellectual.  Hence  the  suspicious  and  disparaging  disposition 
toward  the  intellectual  mode  of  consciousness,  in  a  very  numerous 
class  of  minds  of  the  highest  order.  From  a  personal  feeling  of 
safety  and  security  in  intuition  and  of  dissatisfaction  with  in- 
tellectual efforts,  the  transition  is  natural  to  a  conviction  that 
the  trouble  is  in  the  essential  nature  of  intellect.  A  mode  of  con- 
sciousness which  is  so  inveterately  and  (presumably)  inevitably 
beset  with  self-frustration  cannot  be  knowledge.  It  is  too  obvious- 
ly the  opposite  of  knowledge,  to  wit  error  and  delusion. 

But  once  the  opposition  has  reached  this  })oint,  where  not  only 
the  convenience  but  the  very  validity  of  intellect  is  impugned. 


99]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  BergsorCs  Philosophy  29 

one  is  involved  in  a  disjunction  between  these  two  modes  of 
consciousness  that  is  demonstrably  false,  both  logically  and  psy- 
chologically. It  is  surely  a  false  hypostasis  of  terms  whose  dis- 
tinction is  merely  abstract,  to  set  over  against  each  other  in  this 
way  two  aspects  which  are  equally  essential  to  any  conception  of 
the  nature  of  consciousness.  For  intuition  and  intellect  can  be 
seen  to  imply  each  other  with  the  same  necessity  with  which 
quality  and  quantity  imply  each  other.  And  there  is  the  same 
absurdity,  on  the  side  of  epistemology,  in  regarding  intuition  as 
valid  knowledge  and  intellect  as  not  valid,  as,  on  the  side  of  onto- 
logy, in  regarding  quality  as  real  and  quantity — or  relation  in 
general — as  not  real.  As  if  either  were  conceivable  except  as 
a  co-aspect  or  coeflBcient  with  the  other,  in  the  nature  of  reality. 
This  would  be  to  conceive  of  quality  as  quality  of  nothing,  or 
relation  as  relation  between  no  terms. 

If  philosophy  must  be  reflective  (and  reflectiveness  to  some 
degree  is  undoubtedly  an  inevitable  condition  of  human  con- 
sciousness, perhaps  of  any  consciousness),  it  must  be,  quatenus 
philosophy,  intellectual,  and  not,  quatenus  philosophy,  intuitional. 
Intuition  will  assuredly  be  there,  in  any  philosophy,  as  the  pole 
is  inseparable  from  its  antipodes.  But  the  philosophicalness  of 
philosophy  is  just  its  reflectiveness;  that  is,  once  more,  quatenus 
philosophy,  it  is  intellectual. 

I  am  recording  a  protest  against  false  reification  of  what  is 
abstract,  the  very  fault  which  intuitionism  is  insistent  to  lay  to 
the  charge  of  intellectualism.  If  intuitionism  were  to  conceptual- 
ize intuition  and  intellect,  instead  of  reifying  them,  it  could  not 
appropriate  validity  to  either  mode  of  consciousness  and  deny  it 
to  another.  The  satisfactoriness  and  richness  of  a  given  mode 
of  consciousness  depend  no  doubt  on  the  constitution  of  the  subject. 
The  validity  of  consciousness  in  any  mode  has  nothing  to  do  with 
such  personal  idiosyncrasy. 

James  is  less  rigorous  concerning  the  validity  of  relational 
knowledge  than  Bergson.  Having  found  relations  in  the  im- 
mediate content  of  conscious  data,  James  cannot  deny  them  an 
essential  constitutiveness  in  the  nature  of  reality.  But  such 
knowledge  is  "thin"  and  "poor",  in  his  homely  and  human 
phraseology.  This  is  only  a  more  naive  and  genial  expression 
than  Bergson's  of  the  purely  eulogistic  primacy  of  quality  over 
relation.     Relations  are  thin  and  poor  aspects  of  reality,  no  doubt. 


so  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [100 

if  you  find  them  so.  Otherwise  they  may  be  supremely  interesting. 
That  depends  on  your  interests,  which  depend  on  your  consti- 
tution. In  any  case,  they  are  the  aspect  of  reality  primarily 
indispensable  to  reflective  thought,  which  is  philosophy. 

The  characteristic  which  is  most  sedulously  imputed  by  the 
philosophy  of  instinct  to  intellect  is  usefulness,  but  this  char- 
acteristic is  treated  as  evidence  of  cognitive  invalidity !  In  point 
of  fact,  serviceableness  to  action  in  no  way  distinguishes  intellect 
from  instinct.  Each  alike  is  a  reactive  state  resulting  in  a  new 
situation,  a  new  arrangement  of  matter;  and  the  only  thing  that 
can  give  true  finality  to  the  intelligent  act  is  the  affective  value  of 
the  conscious  state  arising  out  of  this  new  situation.  But  the 
same  is  true  of  the  situation  which  is  the  outcome  of  the  instinctive 
act. 

The  distinction  sometimes  seems  to  mean  that  it  is  only  ac- 
quaintance with  objects  (intuitive  knowledge  of  them)  that  has 
affective  value,  and  that  this  kind  of  consciousness  is  therefore 
an  end  in  itself  in  a  sense  in  which  intellect  is  not.  For  knowledge 
about  the  object  (intellectual  knowledge  of  it)  will  then  be  supposed 
to  have  no  affective  value  in  itself,  but  only  as  it  may  subserve 
action  upon  the  object,  which  action  will  be  accompanied  by  ac- 
quaintance with  the  object.  But  if  knowledge  about  an  object 
subserves  acquaintance  with  it,  the  converse  is  no  less  true.  If 
knowledge  of  the  location  and  price  of  a  tennis  ball  subserves  my 
use  of  it  and  acquaintance  with  it,  the  latter  in  turn  subserves  my 
knowledge  about  it  in  an  indefinite  number  of  respects.  True, 
acquaintance  wdth  an  object  may  not  always  lead  to  knowledge 
about  it  so  obviously  as  in  the  case  of  the  tennis  ball;  but  again 
it  is  equally  true  that  knowledge  about  certain  things,  for  instance 
lines  drawn  upon  the  blackboard,  has  no  olnious  leading  toward 
utihty;  the  utility  of  a  certain  niathcniaticiil  equation  may  seem 
quite  inscrutable.  But  how  obvious  the  leading  may  be,  or  how 
interesting  the  utihty,  is  nothing  to  the  point.  The  question 
whether  or  not  the  connection  is  necessarily  there  in  all  cases  is 
answered  peremptorily  a  priori  by  the  polar  character  of  knowledge 
by  virtue  of  which  acquaintance-with  is  only  an  asi)ect  of  knowl- 
edge-about,  and  vice  versa. 

It  is  flagrantly  untrue,  as  a  fact,  that  knowledge-about  is  witli- 
out  affective  value  in  itself.     Experience  is  as  emphatic  to  the 


101]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  31 

contrary  as  reason.  If  a  characteristically  intellectual  state  of 
mind  gives  you  less  satisfaction,  or  more,  than  one  that  is  charac- 
teristically intuitive,  the  reason  is  quite  personal  and  accidental 
in  either  case.  It  may  just  as  well  give  you  more  as  less.  Being 
knowledge  in  each  case,  awareness  at  least,  it  has  its  aflFective 
value  in  some  degree  necessarily,  of  whichever  character  it  may 
be  predominantly. 

Since  relation  is  not  divorcible  from  quality,  nor  intellect  from 
intuition,  it  results  that,  if  the  artist  blunders  through  critical 
defect,  even  better  art  would,  of  itself,  have  saved  him  in  spite  of 
his  critical  defect.  If  the  mustiness  of  the  philosopher  is  express- 
ible as  lack  of  a  facile  instinct,  merely  a  truer  theory  of  life  would 
have  corrected  him.  No  doubt  life  is  too  intricate  for  the  most 
robust  capacity  for  ratiocination.  Sanity  balances  securely  be- 
tween the  two  biases  of  consciousness.  Art  and  criticism  are 
equally  long,  and  the  middle  course  a  is  short-cut  and  an  economy 
of  living.  But  condemnation  of  the  validity  of  consciousness 
in  any  mode  is  a  theoretical  proposition  irrelevant  to  maxims  of 
practical  sagacity.  And  it  implies  either  condemning  the  validity 
of  all  consciousness  (if  intuition  and  intellect  are  aspects  of  each 
other)  or  else  it  presupposes  that  reality  is  not  categorical,  which 
Bergson  fails  to  show.  On  page  (24  of  the  present  essay,  we  have 
seen  that  he  seems,  in  an  inconsistent  way,  even  to  maintain  the 
contradictory  thesis. 

In  a  former  paper*  I  have  written  as  follows: 

"Now,  Bergson's  idea  of  the  philosopher — an  artist  in  life — is 
probably  no  one's  else.  He  is  of  that  opinion,  decidedly;  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  book  [Creative  Evolution]  is  a  demonstration 
that  actual  philosophers,  from  Plato  on,  are  intellectualists  all, 
dissectors,  not  artists.  But  if  Bergson's  enterprise  is  to  be  a 
substitute  for  philosophy  and  appropriate  its  name,  we  who  are 
much  addicted  to  the  old  enterprise  will  be  careful  to  know  why 
it  is  futile  and  illusory. " 

Monsieur  Bergson  comments  on  this  in  a  private  letter  from 
which  I  translate : 

"It  would  be  so,  I  recognize,  if  these  intellectualist  philosophers 
had  been  philosophers  only  in  virtue  of  their  intellectualism.     But 


6.     Journal  of  Philosophy.  Psychology  and  Scientific  Methods,  Volume  V,  No.  22 


S2  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [102 

whereas  intelligence  pure  and  simple  professes  to  solve  the  prob- 
lems, it  is  intuition  alone  that  has  enabled  them  to  be  put.  With- 
out the  intuitive  feehng  of  our  freedom,  there  would  be  no  problem 
of  freedom,  hence  no  determinist  theory;  thus,  the  different  forms 
of  determinism,  which  are  so  many  forms  of  intellectualism,  owe 
their  very  existence  to  something  which  could  not  have  been 
obtained  by  the  intellectualist  method.  For  my  part,  I  find, 
more  or  less  developed,  the  seeds  of  intuit  ionism  in  most  of  the 
great  philosophic  doctrines,  although  the  philosophers  have  al- 
ways tried  to  convert  their  intuition  into  dialectic.  Yet  it  is 
chiefly  in  the  former  that  they  have  l)een  philosophers. " 

This  seems  to  me  an  absolute  inversion  of  intuition  and  intellect. 
Does  intuition  'put  problems'?  It  is,  certainly,  intuition  that 
gives  us  the  material  of  our  problems.  But  the  formulating  of 
a  problem — what  can  be  meant  by  intuition's  ft>rinulating  any- 
thing? Giving  forms,  I  should  say,  just  defines  the  work  of 
intellect.  Intuition  gives  us  our  facts,  our  material.  Surely, 
the  putting  of  problems  is  an  intellectual  operation  continuous, 
even  identical,  strictly,  with  their  solution?  A  problem  well 
put  is  rather  more  than  half  solved.  Certainly  the  rcmaindt'r 
of  the  solution  is  not  a  tlitferent  order  of  activity.  It  carries  out 
the  'putting'  in  its  impUcations.  A  problem  put  is  only  a  problem 
incompletely  solved.^  Solving  it  is  putting  it  with  a  .satisfactory 
perspicacity. 

Without  the  intuitive  feeling  of  our  freedom  there  would  be 
no  probleai  of  freedom,  certainly,  but  you  might  easily  have  the 
intuition  without  the  problem.  In  the  preface  to  the  Essai  sur 
les  donnces  immSdiates  de  la  conscience,  Berg.son  insists  that  it  is 
the  aberrations  of  intellect  that  give  rise  to  the  problems  of  free- 
dom.    Intellect,  then,  at  any  rate,  not  intuition,  puts  the  problem. 

As  correlative  modes  of  consciousness,  neither  is  independent, 
nor  primary,  of  course.  Even  in  the  putting  of  our  problems, 
intellect  is  only  a  co-factor,  a  coefficient  with  intuition.  And 
in  the  most  abstract  reasoning,  the  intuitive  coefficient  of  thought 
is  indispensable.  So  far  as  intellect  is  actual,  concrete  knowledge, 
it  must  be  intuitively  correlated,  and  so  far  as  intuition  is  the  real 
intuiting  of  anything,  it  must  be  intelligently  correlated. 

In  what  respect  are  the  philosophers  of  whom  Monsieur  Bergson 

7.     Cf.  the  second  sentence  of  the  present  essay. 


103]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  33 

speaks  intuitionists?  Does  this  mean  anything  more  than  that 
they  are  wide-reaching  and  far-reaching  instead  of  narrow  and 
dull  in  their  apprehension?  Is  not  philosophy  interpretation  of 
experience?  Is  not  the  philosopher's  vision,  therefore,  always 
necessarily,  just  so  far  as  he  is  a  philosopher,  a  vision  of  the  formal 
aspect  of  reality?  To  be  sure,  that  is  just  what  Monsieur  Bergson 
is  denying.  But  his  reason  is  that  reality  is  pure  quality,  a 
proposition  whose  logical  faultiness  and  temperamental  genesis 
I  have  sufficiently  noted. 

In  view  of  the  temperamental  basis  of  the  artistic  and  the 
philosophical  or  critical  attitudes,  it  were  fatuous  for  either  to 
propose  a  reform  in  the  other  by  way  of  conformity  to  a  mode 
distinguished  from  it  thus  radically.  It  is  this  fatuity  which  it 
seems  to  me  Bergson  commits  in  regarding  the  success  of  any 
philosophy  as  due,  by  any  possibility,  to  its  becoming  art  instead. 
As  well  conceive  that  the  virtue  of  an  artistic  product  consists 
in  its  conformity  to  critical  canons. 

Philosophy  that  is  false  to  art  would  therein  necessarily  be 
false  to  philosophy ;  and  art  that  is  false  to  philosophy  is  false  to 
art;  but  art  is  not  philosophy,  nor  philosophy  art. 


I 


PART  TWO 
BERGSON'S  SYSTEM  OF  DOCTRINE 


Chapter  I 


ONTOLOGY    AND    EPISTEMOLOGY 


My  reason  for  coupling  these  two  subjects  in  one  heading  is 
suggested  by  the  following  words  quoted  from  the  Introduction 
to  Creative  Evolution:  "...  theory  of  knowledge  and 
theory  of  life  seem  to  us  inseparable."  For  Bergson,  reality  is 
life;  and  knowledge,  of  course,  is  a  function  of  life.  "The  funda- 
mental character  of  Bergson's  philosophy,"  writes  H.  Wildon 
Carr,^  "is  ...  to  emphasize  the  primary  importance  of  the 
conception  of  life  as  giving  the  key  to  the  nature  of  knowledge. " 

All  the  essential  principles  of  this  metaphysics  are  contained 
in  the  first  of  Bergson's  philosophical  books.  Time  and  Free  Will.^ 
The  two  later  books.  Matter  and  Memory  and  Creative  Evolution, 
have  not  modified  it,  and  have  hardly  even  developed  it — in  the 
sense,  that  is,  that  no  vital  corrections  or  additions  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Essai  have  been  made. 

In  discussing  anti-intellectualistic  philosophies,  in  the  first  part 
of  the  present  essay,  their  suspicion  and  distrust  of  intellect  was 
attributed  to  a  logical  illusion.  The  philosopher,  finding  life  pre- 
eminently satisfactory  in  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
qualitative  aspect  of  experience,  acquires  an  instinctive  faith  in 
the  preeminent  reality  of  quality,  a  faith  which  is  the  deepest 
root  of  his  being.  Now,  this  faith  is  absolutely  justified,  of 
course.  It  is  only  necessary  that  it  should  be  understood.  Il- 
lusion and  error  enter  in  with  the  neglect  of  the  very  preeminence 
of  this  character  of  reality.     For  evidently  nothing  can  be  pre- 


8.  Henri  Bergson:      The  Philosophy  of  Change,  p.  14. 

9.  This  title  has  been  given  to  the  English  translation  of  the  Essai  sur  les 
donnes,  etc. 

S7 


S8  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [108 

eminently  real  and  at  the  same  time  real  in  any  sense  for  which 
the  adverb  "preeminently"  is  either  false  or  meaningless.  The 
sense  of  "important"  is  a  well  accredited,  proper  meaning,  in  our 
language,  of  the  word  "real."  But  it  is  a  sense  perfectly  distinct 
from  the  metaphysical  sense.  Teleologically,  anything  is  pre- 
eminently real  according  to  circumstances.  Teleologically,  "real" 
is  a  synonym  of  "important,"  a  relative  term  capable  of  degree. 
Metaphysically,  circumstances  are  irrelevant  to  the  realness  of 
anything.  This  is  a  different  statement  from  the  statement  that 
circumstances  are  irrelevant  to  th.^  nature  of  anything.  It  nuiy 
be  that  there  is  nothing  whose  nature  can  be  independent  of, 
wholly  undetermined  by,  circumstances.  That  is  another  ques- 
tion. We  have  nothing  to  do  with  it  at  present.  For  in  either 
case,  circumstances  make  it  neither  more  nor  less  real.  Meta- 
physically, then,  "real"  is  an  ab.solute  term,  incapable  of  degree, 
and  the  adverb  "preeminently"  has  no  meaning  when  appUed 
to  it.  The  ver>'  fitness  of  the  adverb  "preeminently"  to  the 
intuitionist's  meaning  of  the  realness  of  quality  determines  this 
meaning  as  a  teleological  eulogism,  and  the  ultimate  significance 
of  intuitionism  is  not  the  germination  of  a  logical  principle,  but 
an  instinctive  proi)agandism  in  the  direction  of  a  favorite  emphasis 
of  living,  an  enthusiasm  which  has  become  involved  in  a  logical 
illusion  concerning  its  ovra  foundation  in  the  nature  of  things, 
an  illusion  which  is  clearly  traceable,  on  analysis,  to  this  ambiguity 
in  the  use  of  the  word  "  real. " 

Later  in  this  study  it  will  a])pear  thai  Hergson's  interest 
centers,  as  the  interest  of  French  phiK)soj)hy  has  centered  ever 
since  the  Renaissance,  in  the  problem  of  freedom.  No  doubt 
that  very  enthusiasm  which  motivates  modern  anti-intellectual- 
ism  and  gives  it  so  positive  a  character,  is  a  prime  factor  in  its 
popular  success.  And  in  the  case  of  Bergson,  both  the  significance 
of  his  philosophy  itself  and  the  brilliant  vogue  it  has  achieved  can 
be  rightly  appreciated  only  in  the  light  of  this  central  passion 
whose  appeal  to  human  nature  is  so  universal  and  so  profound. 
Anti-intellectualism  and  anti-determinism  are  one  and  the  same 
thmg.  It  will  appear  as  we  go  on  that  a  deep-lying  tychism,  a 
horror  of  determinism,  is  the  specific  trait  of  that  motive  (de- 
scribed above  as  a  natural  affinity  for  the  qualitative  asj^ect  of 
reality,  as  distinguished  from  its  relational  aspect)  which  strenu- 
ously endeavors,  in  Bergson,  to  eliminate  relation  from  reality. 


109]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  39 

judgment  from  knowledge.  He  protests  that  freedom  cannot 
be  defined  without  converting  it  into  necessity;  for  definition  is 
determination.  A  would-be  indeterminist  theory  of  will  is  as 
futile  as  a  determinist  theory  is  false:  on  any  theory,  wall  is  pre- 
judged in  favor  of  determinisn.  The  nature  of  freedom  cannot 
be  known  independently  of  the  nature  of  will,  and  then  attributed 
or  denied  to  will,  as  one  might  attribute  or  deny  redness  to  an 
apple.  To  say,  Will  is  free,  would  he  like  saying,  ^Yill  is  voluntary, 
or,  Freedom  is  free — not,  indeed,  an  untruth,  but  without  meaning 
and  hence  not  a  truth,  either. 

The  one  way,  then,  of  getting  the  true  nature  of  will  truly 
comprehended  which  is  doomed  to  necessary  failure,  is  to  write 
a  p.sychological  treatise  on  the  subject.  For,  since  will  has  no 
such  determinate  character  as  intellect  finds  in  it  or  gives  to  it, 
a  treatise  conveying  the  true  nature  of  will  would  have  to  be  un- 
intelligible! Now,  see  in  will,  as  Iveibniz'"  and  Schopenhauer,  as 
well  as  Berg.son,  have  seen  in  it,  the  whole  of  life  and  of  reality, 
and  you  see  how  it  is  Bergson's  tychism  that  constitutes  the 
specific  motive  for  his  anti-intellectualism,  and  how  this  so-called 
method  forms,  in  his  j)liilo.soj>hy,  the  supreme  doctrine  which  is 
the  objective  of  all  his  di.scourse. 

Bergson's  criticjue  of  intellectualism  proceeds  by  applying  to 


10.  Po.sslbly  this  repre.s«'ntatlon  of  Leibniz's  tliouRht  requires  a  word  of  ex- 
planation. Leiijniz  oxi>rt\ssfs  tlie  nature  of  reality  in  terms  of  force,  on  one  hand, 
and  of  consriousness  on  tlu-  other.  The  monad  or  t^lcmental  reality  is  a  unit  of 
perception  and  also  a  unit  of  force.  It  \a  a  living  unit;  as  in  Bergsonlsm,  reality 
Is  life,  though  life  in  Leil)niz's  philosophy  is  ultimately  plural  Instead  of  a  simple 
impetus.  It  is  true  that  will  is  not  a  cnaracteristic  Leibnizian  term,  but  existence 
Is  always.  I  think,  conceived  by  him  very  clearly  as  conation.  The  self-realization 
of  the  monad  is  at  the  same  time  an  intensification  of  its  perceptiveness  and  of 
its  dynamic.  Cf.  the  following  passages  from  Rogers'  Student's  History  of 
Philosophy,  pp.  307-8:  "Leibniz  was  led  by  various  motives  to  substitute,  for 
extenslf)n.  power  of  resistance,  as  the  essential  quality  of  matter.  .  .  .  But 
when,  instead  of  extension,  we  characterize  matter  as  force,  a  means  of  connection 
[between  matter  and  mind]  is  opened  up.  For  force  has  its  analogue  in  the  con- 
scious life;  corresponding  to  t^ie  activity  of  matter  is  conscious  activity  or  will. 
Indeed,  are  there  any  positive  terms  in  wliich  we  can  describe  the  nature  of  force, 
unless  wo  conceive  it  as  identical  with  that  conscious  activity  which  we  know 
directly  In  ourselves?"  This  activity,  then,  "is  at  bottom,  when  we  interpret 
It,  a  spiritual  or  perceptual  activity. "     In  short,  it  is  will. 

Leibniz  Is  properly  regarded  as  the  first  modern  spiritualist.  Leibnizian  matter 
Is  real,  if  you  like,  but  then  it  is  continuous,  and  of  essentially  identical  nature, 
with  spirit.  Matter  is  spirit  in  a  low  stage  of  development.  Bergson  has  no 
such  clear  and  unambiguous  conception  of  matter  as  this,  when  you  consider  the 
whole  of  his  doctrine:  but  there  are  passages  in  Bergson  which  might  almost  have 
been  written  by  Leibniz  himself.  For  instance:  .  .  .  "if,  in  fact,  the  humblest 
fuinction  of  spirit  is  to  bind  together  the  successive  moments  of  the  duration  of 
things,  if  it  Is  by  this  that  it  comes  into  contact  with  matter  and  by  this  also  that 
it  is  first  of  all  distinguished  from  matter,  we  can  conceive  an  infinite  number  of 
degrees  between  matter  and  fully  developed  spirit — a  spirit  capable  of  action 
which  is  not  only  undetermined,  but  also  reasonable  and  reflective."  (Matter 
and  Memory,  pp.  295-fi.) 


40  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [110 

traditional  metaphysics  and  epistemologj'  his  purely  quahtative 
criterion  of  reahty.  Whether  science,  the  product  of  intelligence, 
is  physical,  biological,  or  psychological,  it  is  knowledge-about, 
and  not  acquaintance-with ;  its  object  is  relation,  and  not  reahty; 
its  objective  is  action,  and  not  vision;  its  organ  is  intelligence, 
not  instinct.  But  the  object  of  philosophy  is  reality;  its  objective 
is  vision;  its  organ  instinct.  The  timeless,  intellectual  way  in 
which  science  knows  about,  but  never  knows,  is  not  the  way  of 
true  philosophy.  The  philosopher,  to  know  reality,  must  achieve 
a  vital,  sympathetic  concurrence  with  its  flow.  To  be  known, 
reality  must  be  lived,  not  though*.  In  Creatire  Erolution  Bergson 
traces  the  genesis  of  instinct  and  intelligence  to  a  primitive  ten- 
dency, effort  or  spring  of  life  (the  clan  vital)  whose  path  bifurcates 
indefinitely  in  the  course  of  its  evolution.  Those  elementary* 
tendencies,  instinct  and  intelligence,  having  issued  from  the  same 
primitive  tendency,  are  both  present,  at  least  in  rudiment,  in  all 
forms  of  life;  and  it  is  the  presence,  though  in  a  tuppressed  sUite, 
of  instinct  in  man  that  must  save  philosophy  from  the  cognitive 
emptiness  of  science,  and  give  it  a  hold  on  the  living  fulness  of 
reality. 

In  Tiine  and  Free  Will  the  theorv  of  "real  duration,"  which 
is  a  synonym  for  intuition,  and  for  life,  and  for  reality,  and  is  the 
foundation  of  the  Bergsonian  pliilosojjhy,  is  emmciated,  and  in 
the  light  of  it  intellect  is  sh()\\  n  to  falsify  the  nature  of  conscious- 
ness in  applying  to  conscious  states  such  categories  as  magnitude, 
plurality,  causation.  Each  of  thesr  ratcgori<*s,  in  its  traditional 
application,  is  a  (luantifying  and  a  spatializing  (»f  consciousness. 
The  intensity  of  a  conscious  state  is  nothing  but  the  state  itself; 
the  state  is  pure  (juality  or  heterogeneity,  incapable  of  measure 
and  degree.  The  variousness  of  conscious  states  has  no  analogj' 
with  plurality.  Plurality  is  simultaneity  and  juxtajxjsition; 
but  conscious  states  jiroiong  each  other  in  an  interiKMietrating 
flow.  Finally,  the  organization  of  conscious  states  is  nothing 
like  the  traditional  .systematic  "coiirdination"  of  asso<iationistic 
psychology.  It  does  not  lend  itself  to  laws  and  principles.  It 
cannot  l)e  adequately  expressed  by  words,  nor  artificially  recon- 
structed by  a  juxtaposition  of  simple  states,  for  it  is  always  an 
absolutely  new  and  original  phase  of  our  duration,  and  is  itself 
a  simple  thing. 

The  first  chapter  of  Time  and  Free  iVill  consists  of  analvscs  of 


Ill]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  PJiilosophy  J^l 

all  sorts  of  psychological  states,  in  order  to  justify  the  above 
thesis  concerning  intensity.  They  are  masterly  analyses,  and 
their  interest  for  psychology'  is  great.  So  far  as  Bergson's  object 
is  concerned,  of  showing  how  intellect  falsifies  the  nature  of  con- 
sciousness in  conceiving  of  sensations  as  more  or  less  intense,  what 
the  chapter  proves  is  no  more  than  that  whenever  a  conscious 
state  varies — which  every  conscious  state  does  continuously — it 
varies  qualitatively.  Which  hardly  needed  to  be  proved.  For 
the  argument  does  not  show  that,  along  with  the  qualitative 
change,  a  quantitative  change  may  not  occur;  that  is,  it  does  not 
exclude  the  proposition  which  Bergson  is  trying  to  refute,  namely 
that  there  is  something  in  the  nature  of  a  conscious  state  that  is 
capable  of  increasing  and  decreasing." 

In  saying  that  conscious  states  are  pure  quality,  Bergson  means 
that  when  one  compares  a  sensation,  for  instance,  with  another 
which  is  regarded  as  of  the  same  "kind,"  but  of  greater  or  less 
intensity,  both  the  sameness  of  kind  and  the  difference  of  magni- 
tude are  illusions  of  intellect,  due  to  attributing  the  category  of 
magnitude,  or  Cjuantity,  to  that  whose  nature  admits  of  no  such 
determination.  A  so-called  more  intense  odor,  say,  it  is  mere 
nonsense  to  call  same  in  any  sense  with  another,  supposed  to  be 
less  intense.  The  two  are  distinguishable,  that  is  all;  they  are 
not  comparable,  properly  speaking.  They  are  comparable  in 
just  the  sense,  ami  in  no  other  (it  would  seem,  from  Bergson's 
treatment  of  the  subject,  although  the  statement  is  not  his,  ex- 
plicitly) that  either  of  the  odors  can  be  compared  with  a  sound  or 
a  taste.  The  (jitferencc  is  not  one  of  degree;  it  is  what  Bergson 
calls  absolute. 

But  what,  then,  exactly,  according  to  Bergson,  do  we  mean 
when  we  compare  psychic  states  as  more  or  less  intense?  In 
simple  states,  he  says,  magnitude  of  cause  is  associated,  by  a 
thousand  experiences,  with  a  certain  quality  or  shade  of  effect 
in  consciousness,  and  ihe  former  is  attributed  to  the  latter.  The 
quantitative  .scale  rubs  off  color,  so  to  speak,  by  the  operation 
of  association,  from  the  material  cause  to  the  p.sychic  effect.  In 
complex  states  intensity  means  the  amount  of  our  inner  life  which 
the  state  in  ciuestion  colors  with  its  own  quaUty.  A  passion  is 
deep  and  intense  in  the  fact  that  the  same  objects  no  longer  pro- 

11.  There  is  a  good  discussion  of  this  point  in  an  article  reviewing  the  Essai, 
by  L.  Levy-Bnihl.  in  the  Rrruc  Philnsophique,  Vol.  XXIX  (1890),  pp.  513-538. 


^S  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [112 

duce  the  same  impression.  In  this  statement  of  the  case  of 
complex  states  it  will  be  seen  that  Bergson  fails  to  avoid  attributing 
quantity  to  the  inner  Hfe  of  consciousness,  since  the  intensity  of 
complex  states  is  measured,  by  liim,  by  a  quantitative  standard, 
the  amount  of  that  inner  life  colored  or  affected  by  the  quality 
in  question. 

The  attempt  is  equally  hopeless  whether  the  state  in  (juestion 
be  simple  or  complex.  Bergson  attempts,  but  fails,'^  to  prove 
that  magnitude  is  a  character  peculiar  to  space,  and  that  homo- 
geneity and  space  are  two  names  for  the  same  conception.  Two 
odors,  two  sounds  are  mare  than  one,  however;  and  that  homo- 
geneity in  them  by  virtue  of  which  they  arc  more,  and  two,  is 
not  space.  Bergson  would  object  that  number  itself,  the  twoness 
of  the  odors  or  sounds,  is  indeed  a  spatial  attribute  falsely  imputed 
to  them.  They  are  not  plural,  in  tluMnsclvcs;  it  is  conceptual- 
ization that  accounts  for  the  phirality  imputed  to  them.  One 
evolves  continuously,  in  the  flow  of  consciousness,  out  of  the  other. 
It  would  be  a  sufficient  answer  that  such  a  dcx-trine  contradicts 
itself  in  every  breath  by  the  terms  necessary  to  any  utterance  of 
it, — such  terms  as  sounds,  they,  tliem,  one,  the  other — all  imputing 
to  the  objects  of  discussion  the  plunility  which  it  tries  to  deny. 
And  to  fall  back  on  the  disabilities  of  language,  due  to  its  being 
the  work  of  intellect,  is  only  to  declare  one's  j)hilosophy  ineffable. 
But  not  only  ineffable — unthinkable.  Yes,  Bergson  wouhl  admit, 
unthinkable  in  the  narrow  sense  of  conceptual  thought,  but  not 
unknowable  to  immediate  intuition.  The  final  rejoinder,  I  think, 
is  that  immediacy  is  a  vanishing-i)oint,  a  Hiiiiting  conception  of 
the  relation  between  subject  and  ol)ject,  a  pliase  of  consciousness 
in  which  to  use  the  mathematical  analogy,  tiie  "coefficient"  of 
consciousness  vanishes  into  zero.  We  return  later  in  this  essay 
to  the  amplifying  of  this  point."  In  brief,  if  there  is  no  distindiou 
between  subject  and  object,  there  is  no  object  (as,  likewise,  no 
subject,  of  course);  hence,  no  truth;  and  Bergson  could  not  have 
made  these  ineffable  discoveries  about  the  sounds  and  odors,  for 
he  could  not  have  discovered  themselves. 

It  is  clear  enough  that  nothing  needs  to  occupy  space,  in  order 
to  be  a  magnitude.    A  line,  which  occupies  no  space,  is  even  a  spatial 

12.     Cf.  below,  pp.  57,  58. 

/Pr^i^r,Fpf^f2~'  Z?'  V^  Profe.ssor  Perry's  analysis  of  tlu>  ronception  of  immediacy 
to  the  alrne  "   Tendencies,  Chapter  X)  has  a  result  that  Is  similar  In  principle 


lis]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsoiis  Philosophy  ^3 

magnitude,  nevertheless.  That  it  is  spatial,  Bergson  would  say,  is 
just  the  fact  that  it  is  homogeneous.  But  is  homogeneity  the  only 
character  of  a  line,  and  is  its  spatiality  therefore  necessarily  the  same 
thing  as  its  homogeneity  ?  Evidently  a  line  has  a  quale  perfectly 
distinct  from  its  homogeneity,  and  essential  to  its  linear  nature; 
that  quale  is  its  direction.  If  an  interval  of  time,  then,  or  a  mental 
state,  seems  not  to  be  spatial,  this  does  not  compel  us  to  deny  that 
there  is  any  homogeneity  about  it:  if  the  interval  or  the  state  of 
mind  lacks  the  determination — the  character  of  direction — which  is 
indispensable  to  a  line  and  to  spatiality  as  such,  this  lack  de- 
termines these  objects  of  thought  as  non-spatial  without  the 
.slightest  detriment  to  their  homogeneity.  But  all  the  evidence 
of  homogeneity  in  space  applies  equally  to  homogeneity  in  time 
and  con.sciousness.  The  evidence  is  their  additiveness :  all  seem 
to  present  numerically  distinct  cases  and  quantitative  differences. 
No  logical  groimd  has  been  indicated,  for  discrimination,  in  the 
validity  of  this  seeming,  as  a  warrant  for  the  homogeneity  of  space 
and  not  of  time  and  con.sciousness.  Time  and  consciousness  are 
homogeneous  by  the  same  warrant  as  space  and  matter. 

I  think  it  is  not  irrelevant  to  Bergson's  theory  of  the  associative 
tran.sfer  of  quantity  in  the  stinmlus  to  the  sensation,  to  observe 
that,  in  the  stinuilus,  there  is  kind  as  well  as  amount.  If  the 
shade  or  quality  of  the  sensation  corresponds  to  the  degree  of 
the  cause,  is  there  no  further  determination  of  the  sensation  dis- 
tinctively correlative  with  the  kind  of  the  cause?  Such  correlate 
seems  indispensable  to  Bergson's,  as  to  any,  reactive  conception 
of  sensation,  but,  in  Bergson's  theory  of  intensity,  it  seems  to 
be  |)reempted  for  correlation  with  the  aspect  of  quantity  in  the 
stimulus. 

The  case  of  plural  odors  and  sounds,  the  case  of  the  line,  and  an 
infinity  of  other  cases  prove  that  magnitude  is  intensive  as  well 
as  extensive.  The  contradictor^•  thesis,  that  of  Bergson,  reduces, 
at  bottom,  to  the  self-contradiction  that  consciousness  discovers 
what  is  no  object  of  consciousness. 

In  admitting  that  sensations  are  comparable  in  this  sense,  that 
two  odors,  for  instance,  regarded  as  of  the  same  kind,  can  be  com- 
pared with  each  other  in  the  same  way  as  either  can  be  compared 
with  a  sound  or  a  taste,  Bergson  evidently  means  that  they  can 
be  distinguished  as  different ;  and  he  regards  this  as  implying  that 


4^  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [IH 

sensations  are  absolutely  heterogeneous  with  each  other,  absolutely 
different.  This  phrase,  I  am  sure,  conceals  a  bald  contradiction. 
It  seems  to  mean  a  relation,  namely  difference,  in  which,  however, 
the  terms  are  absolute,  that  is  not  in  relation.  Difference  cannot 
be  so  conceived.  Difference,  I  submit,  cannot  be  conceived  with- 
out that  (common  to  the  differing  terms)  in  respect  of  which  they  are 
different.  Monsieur  Bergson,  therefore,  in  admitting  that  sen- 
sations are  comparable  in  any  sense,  is  still  confronted  with  an 
element  common  to  all  sensations;  he  has  still  to  eliminate  the 
character  of  homogeneity  from  .ensation,  by  virtue  of  which 
a  purely  subjective  evaluation  of  their  relative  intensities  is 
possible. 

The  root  of  the  difficulty  Monsieur  Levy-Bruhl  has  shown'^ 
to  be  a  reific  separation  of  quantity  and  quality,  which  are  sep- 
arable in  truth  only  by  abstraction  of  attention.  Real  existence 
in  absolute  homogeneity  or  space,  as  Bergson  represents  the 
existence  of  the  external  world,  is  as  unthinkable  as  real  existence 
in  absolute  heterogeneity,  which  existence  is  consciousness  or  life, 
for  Bergson.  External  things,  he  says,  which  do  not  lapse  ("ne 
durent  pas''),  seem  to  us,  nevertheless,  to  lapse  like  us  because  to 
each  instant  of  our  lapsing  duration  a  new  collective  whole  of 
those  simultaneities  which  we  call  the  universe  corresponds. 
"Does  this  not  imply,"  writes  Ivcvy-liruhl,  "a  preestablished 
harmony  much  more  difficult  to  accept  than  that  of  Leibniz? 
Leibniz  supposes  a  purely  ideal  concord  bet\\cen  forces  of  the 
same  nature.  Monsieur  Bergson  asks  us  to  admit  an  indefinite 
series  of  coincidences,  for  each  instant,  between  *a  real  duration, 
whose  heterogeneous  moments  compenet rate,' and  a  space  which, 
not  lapsing,  has  no  moments  at  all.  Monsieur  Bergson  really 
places  external  reality,  which  does  not  lapse,  in  a  sort  of  eternity. 
He  ingeniously  shows  that  everything  in  space  may  be  treated 
as  quantity  and  submitted  to  mathematics.  Now,  mathematical 
verities,  expressing  only  relations  between  given  magnitudes,  are 
abstracted  from  real  lapsing  duration.  All  the  laws  reduce  to 
analytical  formula?.  But  then  they  are,  according  to  the  saying 
of  Bossuet,  eternal  verities,  and  how  .shall  the  real  be  distinguished 
from  the  possible  ?  " 

This  sundering,  in  Bergson's  theory  of  reality,  of  what  rightly 

14.      Op.  cit.,  p.  525. 


115]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  45 

is  one,  is  already  implied,  in  his  theory  of  knowledge,  in  the  mutual 
exclusion  of  the  two  cognitive  modes,  intuition  and  conception. 
The  predicaments  into  which  philosophy  falls  in  reasoning  con- 
ceptually (and  there  is  no  other  reasoning)  about  the  subjective 
"world,"  are  due,  Bergson  thinks,  not  to  faults  in  the  use  of 
logic,  but  to  an  essential  incongruity  between  the  matter  and  the 
logical  mode  of  being  conscious  of  it.  But  such  an  essential  in- 
congruity between  any  mode  of  consciousness  and  what  it  is  aware 
of  would  imply  that  the  modes  of  consciousness,  on  the  one  hand, 
are  parts  of  consciousness,  of  which  accordingly,  you  can  have 
one  without  the  other  (theoretically  if  not  actually) ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  is  the  corresponding  implication  for  ontology, 
that  what  consciousness  is  aware  of  is  also  composed  of  two  parts, 
which  match,  respectively,  the  parts  of  consciousness.  Divide 
consciousness  into  two  parts,  then  divide  what  it  is  aware  of  into 
two  parts;  suppose  that  each  of  your  parts  of  consciousness  suits 
one,  and  not  the  other,  of  your  two  parts  of  what  it  is  aware  of — all 
this  is  necessary  before  there  can  be  any  possibility  of  incongruous 
mismatching  between  consciousness  and  being.  Therefore  un- 
easiness about  this  incongruity,  the  very  motive  of  intuition- 
ism,  presupposes  first  the  sharpest  conceptual  treatment  of  the 
subjective  "world,"  and  then  the  flagrant  reification  of  the  re- 
sulting abstractions.  In  other  words,  the  indispensable  precon- 
dition of  dialectical  defense  of  intuitionism  is  an  intellectualism 
of  the  "vicious"  type. 

The  first  chapter  of  the  Essai  having  criticized  the  application 
of  magnitude  to  consciousness,  and  found  that  psychological  in- 
tensity has  nothing  quantitative  about  it,  the  second  chapter 
proceeds  with  an  analogous  criticism  of  number,  and  finds  that 
psychological  variousness  has  nothing  plural  about  it.  The  mul- 
tiplicity of  material  objects  is  number  or  plurality;  the  various- 
ness of  the  facts  of  mind  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  Numerical 
multiplicity  is  distinct  and  objective,  given  or  thought  in  space; 
subjective  variousness  is  indistinct  and  compenetrating. 

The  medium  of  the  facts  of  consciousness  being  lapsing  dura- 
tion, and  not  extension,  they  are  never  simultaneous  in  the  same 
consciousness.  But  then  they  cannot  be  counted;  to  count  is 
to  have  things  together,  simultaneously.  That,  again,  is  to  have 
them  in  space.     And  that,  finally,  is  to  have  them  as  objects. 


46  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [116 

Now,  the  essential  nature  of  psychic  facts  is  to  be  subjective  and 
not  objective.  If,  therefore,  you  find  yourself  counting  facts 
within  a  consciousness,  you  are  deluded;  they  cannot  be  wliat 
you  take  them  for;  they  can  only  be  (spatial)  objects,  symbols  by 
which  you  are  representing  facts  that  are  not  objective, — because 
they  are  subjective! — and  not  spatial  but  temporal. 

This  statement  of  the  case  will  satisfy  few  people  as  it  stands. 
Professor  Bergson  is  aware  of  this,  and  he  will  grant  that  such 
alleged  facts  of  consciousness  as  you  distinguish  and  count  may 
be  set  in  the  medium  of  time  raiher  tlian  in  space,  if  time,  as 
well  as  space,  is  a  homogeneous  medium;  but  time  so  understood, 
he  thinks,  turns  into  space.  And  time  is  so  understood  very 
generally,  without  any  doubt.  When  we  sjjeak  of  time,  says 
Bergson,  we  are  usually  thinking  of  space;  that  is,  we  are  thinking 
of  a  homogeneous  medium,  a  medium,  therefore,  in  whicli  psychic 
states  are  aligned  or  juxtaposited,  as  things  are  in  space,  forming 
a  distinct  multiplicity. 

This  is,  of  course,  another  aspect  of  wliat  liergson  regards  as  tlic 
same  vice,  conceptualism,  that  is  discussed  in  the  first  chapter  of 
the  Essai.  An  inten.sive  magnitude  is  a  distinct  concept,  sharply 
bounded;  all  within  is  the  concept,  all  without,  its  other.  But  no 
psychic  fact  is  sharply  bounded;  it  penetrates  the  whole  conscious- 
ness.  The  whole  consciousness  is  one  with  it.  We  work  (juantita- 
tively  with  concepts,  always,  arithmetically  and  geometrically. 
But  then  we  work  in  space,  which  is  enough,  .says  Berg.son,  to  show 
that  intensity  applied  to  a  psychic  fact  is  not  a  magnitude,  .since 
psychic  facts  are  not  in  space.  So  here,  in  the  second  chapter, 
the  elements  which  one  pretends  to  count  and  add  in  time  are,  in 
order  to  be  counted  and  added — in  order  merely  to  l)e  distinguished 
— distinct  concepts.     Then  they  are  not  in  time  but  in  space. 

The  application  of  intensive  magnitude  and  of  numerical  multi- 
plicity to  psychic  facts  is  thus  the  same  fallacy  in  two  aspects, 
the  fallacy  of  conceptualism,  the  nature  of  which  is  to  substitute 
space  for  time  as  the  form  of  mental  existence. 

But  Professor  Bergson  is  not  altogether  dogmatic  in  saying 
that  conceptual  time  is  a  spatialized  .symbol  of  real  time.  He 
goes  on  now  to  show  how  it  is  that  the  nature  of  real  lime  is 
nothing  like  conceptual  time.  Dune,  his  name  for  real  time, 
seems  a  bad  term  for  such  a  use;  for  the  essence  of  Bergson 's 
**duree"   is   change,   while   duration   in    everv    other   connection 


117]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  ^7 

means  just  the  waiting  or  standing  still  of  the  flow  of  time.  Some 
term  like  "lapse"  seems  nearer  the  idea. 

The  genetic  or  empirical  theory  of  space  perception  regards 
the  sensations  by  which  we  succeed  in  forming  the  notion  of  space 
as  themselves  unextended  and  purely  qualitative;  extension  re- 
sults from  their  synthesis,  as  water  results  from  the  combination 
of  two  elements.  Bergson  remarks  that  the  fact  that  water  is 
neither  oxygen  nor  hydrogen  nor  merely  both  is  just  the  fact 
that  we  embrace  the  nuiltiplicity  of  atoms  in  a  single  appercep- 
tion. Eliminate  the  mind  which  operates  this  synthesis  and  you 
will  at  the  same  time  annihilate  the  water  qualities  so  far  as  they 
are  other  than  oxygen  and  hydrogen  qualities;  you  will,  that  is, 
annihilate  the  aspect  under  which  the  synthesis  of  elementary 
parts  is  presented  to  our  consciousness.  For  space  to  arise  from 
the  coexistence  of  non-spatial  qualities,  an  act  of  the  mind  is 
necessary,  embracing  them  all  together  and  juxtapositing  them — 
an  act  which  is  a  Kantian  a  priori  form  of  sensibility. 

This  act  is  the  conception  of  an  empty  homogeneous  medium. 
It  is  a  principle  of  differentiation  other  than  qualitative  differ- 
entiation, enabling  us  to  distinguish  (lualitatively  identical  simul- 
taneous sensations.  Without  this  jirinciple,  we  should  have  per- 
ception of  the  extended,  l)ut  we  should  not  have  conception  of 
space.  That  is,  simultaneous  sensations  are  never  absolutely 
identical,  because  the  organic  elements  stimulated  are  not  identi- 
cal. There  are  no  two  points  of  a  homogeneous  surface  that  produce 
the  same  impression  on  sight  and  touch.  So  there  is  a  real 
(jualitative  difference  between  any  two  simultaneous  points. 
This,  Bergson  says,  is  enough  to  give  us  perception  of  the  extended. 
But  the  conception  of  space  is  en  outre.  The  higher  one  rises  in 
the  series  of  intelligent  beings,  the  more  clearly  the  independent 
idea  of  a  homogeneous  space  stands  out.  Space  is  not  so  homo- 
geneous for  the  animal  as  for  us.  Directions  are  not  purely 
geometrical;  they  have  their  (luaHty.  We  ourselves  distinguish 
our  right  and  left  by  a  natural  feeling.     We  cannot  define  them. 

Now,  the  faculty  of  conceiving  a  space  without  quality  is  not  at 
all  an  abstraction;  on  the  contrary,  to  abstract  presupposes  the 
intuition  of  a  homogeneous  medium.  W^e  know  two  realities  of 
different  order,  one  heterogeneous,  that  of  sensible  qualities,  the 
other  homogeneous,  which  is  space.  The  latter  enables  us  to 
make  sharp  distinctions,  to  count,  to  abstract,  perhaps  even  to 


Jk8 


University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [118 


speak.  Everybody  regards  time  as  an  indefinite  homogeneous 
medium,  and  yet  everybody  regards  it  as  different  from  space. 
Is  one,  then,  reducible  to  the  other.^ 

The  genetic  or  empirical  school  tries  to  reduce  the  relations  of 
extension  to  more  or  less  complex  relations  of  succession  in  dura- 
tion. The  relations  of  situation  in  space  are  defined  as  reversible 
relations  of  succession  in  duration.  But  succession  in  duration 
is  not  reversible.  Pure  duration  is  the  form  of  succession  of  con- 
scious states  when  one  refrains  from  reflectively  setting  up  a 
distinctness  between  the  present  state  and  former  states.  This 
does  not  mean  being  wholly  absorbed  in  the  passing  .sensation  or 
idea,  nor  forgetting  former  states;  but  it  means  organizing  them 
instead  of  juxtapositing  them;  they  become  like  the  notes  of  a 
melody,  which,  though  they  succeed  each  other,  are  apperceivcd 
in  each  other;  they  interpenetrate  like  the  parts  of  a  living  being. 
Succession,  then,  can  be  conceived  without  distinctness,  as  a 
mutual  penetration,  a  solidarity,  an  intimate  organization  of 
elements  each  of  which,  representative  of  the  whole,  is  distinguish- 
ed and  isolated  therefrom  only  for  a  thought  capable  of  abstraction. 
We  introduce  the  idea  of  space  into  our  representation  of  pure 
succession;  we  so  juxtaposit  our  states  of  consciousness  as  to 
perceive  them  simultaneously,  not  in,  but  l)eside  each  other;  we 
project  time  upon  space,  we  express  duration  in  terms  of  extension. 
Succession  then  takes  the  form  of  a  contiiuious  line  or  of  a  chain, 
whose  parts  touch  without  interpenetration,  which  ini])lies  a  sim- 
ultaneous before  and  after  instead  of  a  successive — that  is,  a 
simultaneous  succession,  which  is  a  contradiction. 

Now,  when  the  genetic  school  defines  the  relations  of  situation 
in  space  as  reversible  relations  of  succession  in  duration,  it  repre- 
sents succession  in  duration  in  this  self-contradictory  way.  You 
cannot  make  out  an  order  among  terms  without  distinguishing  the 
terms  and  comparing  the  places  they  occupy,  without  perceiving 
them,  therefore,  as  juxtaposited.  Then  to  make  out  an  order  in 
the  terms  of  a  succession  is  to  make  the  succession  a  sinmltaneity. 
So  this  attempt  to  represent  space  by  means  of  time  presupposes 
the  representation  of  space.  Of  space  in  three  dimensions,  more- 
over; for  the  representation  of  two  dimensions— that  is,  of  a  line — 
implies  that  of  three  dimensions:  to  perceive  a  line  is  to  place 
oneself  outside  it  and  account  for  the  void  surrounding  it. 


119]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  1^9 

Pure  duration  is  nothing  but  a  succession  of  qualitative  changes 
fusing,  interpenetrating,  without  outUnes  or  tendency  to  ex- 
ternaUty  by  interrelation,  without  any  kinship  with  number. 
Pure  duration  is  pure  heterogeneity. 

No  time  that  can  be  measured  is  duration,  for  heterogeneity 
is  not  quantity,  not  measurable.  When  we  measure  a  minute 
we  represent  a  quantity  and  ipso  facto  exclude  a  succession.  We 
represent  sixty  oscillations  of  a  pendulum,  for  instance,  all  to- 
gether, in  one  apperception,  as  we  represent  sixty  points  of  a  line. 
Now,  to  represent  each  ai  these  oscillations  in  succession,  just 
as  it  is  produced  in  space,  no  recollection  of  a  preceding  oscillation 
can  enter  the  representation  of  any  one,  for  space  has  kept  no 
trace  of  it.  One  is  confined  to  the  present,  and  there  is  no  more 
succession,  or  duration,  in  such  a  representation  than  in  that  of 
the  group  as  a  whole.  A  third  way  of  representing  these  oscilla- 
tions is  conceivable.  Like  the  first,  it  involves  retention  of  pre- 
ceding oscillations;  but,  unlike  the  first,  it  retains  preceding  oscilla- 
tions in  succeeding  ones,  instead  of  alongside  of  them;  they  inter- 
penetrate and  interorganize,  as  was  just  said,  like  tlie  notes  of  a 
melody.  Like  the  conceptual  representation,  the  intuitional 
involves  a  multij)licity.  A  conceptual  multi{)licity  is  distinct, 
homogeneous,  (luantitutive,  numerical;  an  intuitive  multi[)licity  is 
indistinct, heterogeneous, (jualitative,withoutanalogj' with  number. 
Now,  it  is  the  latter  that  characterizes  reality;  and  the  nuiltiplicity 
that  we  represent  concej)tually  is  on]\'  a  .symbol  of  the  reality 
known  to  intuition. 

Oscillations  of  a  pendulum  measure  nothing;  they  count  simul- 
taneities. Outside  of  me,  in  space,  there  is  only  a  single  position 
of  the  pendulum;  of  past  positions  none  remains.  Because  my 
duration  is  an  organization  and  interpenetration  of  facts,  I  repre- 
sent what  I  call  "past"  oscillations  of  the  pendulum  at  the  same 
time  that  I  perceive  the  actual  oscillation.  Eliminate  the  ego,  and 
there  is  only  a  single  position  of  the  pendulum,  and  no  duration. 
Eliminate  the  pendulum,  and  there  is  only  the  heterogeneous  dura- 
tion of  the  ego.  Within  the  ego  is  succession  without  .simultaneity 
or  reciprocal  externality:  without  the  ego,  reciprocal  externality 
without  succession,  which  can  exist  only  for  a  conscious  spectator 
who  remembers  the  past,  and  juxtaposits  the  symbols  of  the  two 
oscillations  in  an  auxiliary  space. 

Now,   between   this   succession   without   externality   and   this 


50  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [120 

externality  without  succession  a  kind  of  endosmotic  commerce 
goes  on.  Although  the  successive  phases  of  our  conscious  life 
interpenetrate,  some  of  them  correspond  to  simultaneous  oscilla- 
tions of  the  pendulum;  and  since  each  oscillation  is  distinct — that 
is,  one  is  no  more  when  another  is  produced — we  come  to  make 
the  same  distinctness  between  the  successive  moments  of  our 
conscious  life.  The  oscillations  of  the  pendulum  decomiwse  it, 
as  it  were,  into  mutually  external  jjarts:  hence  the  erroneous  idea 
of  an  internal  homogeneous  duration  analogous  to  space,  whose 
identical  moments  follow  each  (»thcr  without  interjienetrating. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  pendular  oscillations  benefit  by  the  in- 
fluence they  have  exerted  on  our  conscious  life.  Thanks  to  the 
recollection  of  their  collective  whole,  which  our  consciousness 
has  organized,  they  are  preserved  and  then  aligned;  in  short,  we 
create  a  fourth  dimension  of  space  for  them,  which  wo  call  homo- 
geneous time,  and  which  enables  the  penduhir  movement,  although 
produced  in  a  certain  spot,  to  be  juxtaiK)site(l  with  itself  in- 
definitely. 

There  is  a  real  space,  without  duration,  l)ut  in  which  phenomena 
appear  and  disappear  simultaneously  with  our  states  of  conscious- 
ness. There  is  a  real  duration,  wliose  heterogeneous  moments 
interpenetrate,  but  each  of  which  can  touch  a  state  of  the  external 
world  contemporaneous  with  it,  and  so  be  made  .separate  from 
other  movements.  From  the  comparison  of  these  two  realities 
arises  a  symbolic  represenUition  of  duration  drawn  from  space. 
The  trait  common  to  these  two  terras,  space  and  duration,  is 
simultaneity,  the  intersection  of  time  and  space.  This  is  how 
duration  comes  to  get  the  illusory  appearance  of  a  homogeneous 
medium.     But  time  is  not  measurable. 

Neither  is  motion,  the  living  symbol  of  time.  Like  (hiration, 
motion  is  heterogeneous  and  indivisible.  Hut  it  is  universally 
confused  with  the  space  through  which  the  movable  pas.ses.  The 
succesive  positions  of  the  movable  are  in  si)ace,  but  the  motion 
is  not  in  space.  Motion  is  passing  from  one  i^osition  to  another, 
which  operation  occupies  duration  and  has  reality  only  for  a 
conscious  spectator.  Things  occupy  space;  processes  occupy  dur- 
ation, because  they  are  mental  syntheses  and  are  imextended. 

The  synthesis  which  is  motion  is  obviously  not  a  new  deploying 
in  another  homogeneous  medium,  of  the  same  positions  that  have 
been  perceived  in  space;  for  if  it  were  such  an  act.  the  necessity 


121]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  BergsorCs  Philosophy  51 

for  resynthesis  would  be  indefinitely  repeated.  The  synthesis 
which  is  motion  is  a  qualitative  synthesis,  a  gradual  organization 
of  our  successive  sensations  with  each  other,  a  unity  analogous 
to  that  of  a  melodic  phrase.  The  space  traversed  is  a  quantity, 
indefinitely  divisible;  the  act  by  which  space  is  traversed  is  a 
quality,  and  indivisible.  Again  that  endosmotic  exchange  takes 
place,  as  between  the  melodically  organized  perception  of  the 
series  of  the  pendulum's  motions  and  its  distinct  objective  presence 
at  each  instant.  That  is,  we  attribute  to  the  motion  the  divis- 
ibility of  the  space  traversed;  and  we  j^roject  the  act  upon  space, 
implying  that  outside  as  well  as  inside  of  consciousness  the  past 
coexists  with  the  present.  In  space  are  only  parts  of  space. 
In  any  point  of  space  where  the  movable  may  be  considered, 
there  is  only  a  position.  You  would  search  space  in  vain  for 
motion. 

From  the  fact  that  motion  cannot  be  in  space,  Zeno  concluded 
wrongly  that  motion  is  imj)()ssible.  But  those  who  try  to  answer 
his  arguments  by  seeking  it  also  in  space,  find  it  no  more  than  he. 
Achilles  overtakes  the  tortoise  because  each  Achilles  step  and 
each  tortoise  step  is  not  a  space  but  a  duration,  whose  nature  is 
not  addible  nor  divisible,  and  whose  production  therefore  does 
not  presui)pose  productions  of  j)arts  of  themselves,  ad  infinitum. 
Their  development  is  not  construction.  They  are  entire  while 
they  are  at  all,  and  since  the  intersections  of  their  terminal 
moments  with  space  are  not  at  equal  distances,  these  intersections 
will  coincide,  or  their  spatial  relations  will  be  inverted,  after  a 
certain  number  of  these  simultaneities — whether  of  Achilles'  steps 
or  of  the  tortoise's — with  j)oints  of  the  road  have  been  counted; 
in  other  words,  Achilles  will  have  overtaken  or  outrun  the  tortoise 
after  a  certain  number  of  steps. 

To  measure  the  velocity  of  a  motion  is  simply  to  find  a  simul- 
taneity; to  introduce  this  simultaneity  into  calculation  is  to  use 
a  convenient  means  of  foreseeing  a  simultaneity.  Just  as  in 
duration  there  is  nothing  homogeneous  except  w^hat  does  not 
lapse,  to  wit  space  in  which  simultaneities  are  aligned,  so  the 
homogeneous  element  of  motion  is  that  which  least  pertains  to 
it,  to  wit  the  space  traversed,  which  is  immobility. 

Science  can  work  on  time  and  motion  only  on  condition  of  first 
eliminating  the  essential  and  qualitative  element,  duration  from 
time,  mobility  from  motion.     Treatises  on  mechanics  never  de- 


^2  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [122 

fine  duration  itself,  but  call  two  intervals  of  time  equal  when 
two  identical  bodies  in  circumstances  identical  at  the  commence- 
ment of  each  of  these  intervals,  and  subjected  to  identical  actions 
and  influences  of  every  kind,  have  traversed  the  same  space  at 
the  end  of  these  intervals.  There  is  no  question,  in  science,  of 
duration,  but  only  of  space  and  of  simultaneities  between  outer 
change  and  certain  of  our  psychic  states.  That  duration  does 
not  enter  into  natural  science  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  if  all  the 
motions  of  the  universe  were  quicker  or  slower,  then,  whereas 
consciousness  would  have  an  indefinal)le  and  qualitative  intuition 
of  this  change,  no  scientific  formula'  would  be  modified,  since  the 
same  number  of  simultaneities  would  be  produced  again  in  space. 
Analysis  of  the  idea  of  velocity  proves  that  mechanics  has 
nothing  to  do  with  duration.  If,  on  a  trajectory  AB,  points  M, 
N,  P  .  .  .  such  that  AjM^MN=XP  .  .  .  arc  reached 
at  equal  intervals  of  time,  as  defined  above,  and  AM  etc.  are  snudler 
than  any  assignable  quantity,  the  motion  is  .said  to  be  uniform. 
The  velocity  of  a  uniform  motion  is  therefore  defined  without 
appeal  to  notions  other  than  tho.se  of  space  and  simultaneity. 
By  a  somewhat  complicated  demonstration"'  the  .same  is  shown 
to  be  true  of  the  velocity  of  varying  motion.  Mechanics  neces.sa- 
rily  works  with  equations,  and  equations  always  express  accom- 
plished facts.  It  is  of  the  cs.sence  of  duration  and  motion  to  be 
in  formation,  so  that  while  nuithematics  can  express  any  moment 
of  duration  or  any  position  taken  by  a  movable  in  space,  duration 
and  motion  them.selves,  l)eing  mental  .syntheses  and  not  things, 
necessarily  remain  outside  the  calculation.  The  movable  oc- 
cupies the  points  of  a  line  in  turn,  but  the  motion  has  nothing 
in  common  with  this  line.  The  positions  occupied  by  the  movable 
vary  with  the  different  moments  of  duration;  indeed,  the  movable 
creates  distinct  moments  merely  l)y  the  fact  that  it  occupies 
different  positions;  but  duration  has  no  identical  nor  nnitually 
external  moments,  being  essentially  heterogeneous  and  indis- 
tinct. 

Only  space,  then,  is  homogeneous;  only  things  in  space  are 
distinctly  multiple.  There  is  no  succession  in  space.  So-called 
"successive"  states  of  the  outer  world  exist  each  alone.  Their 
multipHcity  is  real  only  for  a  consciousness  capable  of  preserving 

15.     Time  and  Free  Will,  pp.  i  ig-l  19. 


123]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsoris  Philosophy  53 

it  and  then  juxtapositing  it  with  others,  thus  externalizing  them 
by  interrelation.  They  are  preserved  by  consciousness  because 
they  give  rise  to  facts  of  consciousness  which  connect  past  and 
present  by  their  interpenetrating  organization.  But  one  ceases 
when  another  appears,  and  so  consciousness  perceives  them  in 
the  form  of  a  distinct  multiplicity,  which  amounts  to  aligning 
them  in  the  space  where  each  existed  separately.  Space  used  in 
this  way  is  just  what  is  meant  by  homogeneous  time. 

The  spatial  and  the  temporal  kind  of  multiplicity  are  just  as 
different  as  space  and  the  real  time  that  lapses.  Spatial  multi- 
plicity is  always  substituted  for  the  temporal  kind,  in  discourse; 
their  distinction  cannot  be  expressed  in  language,  because  language 
is  a  product  of  space  so  that  terms  are  inevitably  spatial.  Even 
to  speak  of  "several  "conscious  states  interpenetrating  is  to  charac- 
terize them  numerically,  and  so  interrelate  and  mutually  external- 
ize or  spatialize  them.'*  On  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  form  the 
idea  of  a  distinct  multiplicity  without  considering,  parallel  to  it, 
a  qualitative  nuiltiplicity.  Even  in  counting  units  on  a  homo- 
geneous background,  they  organize  in  a  dynamic,  qualitative 
way.  That  is  the  psychological  explanation  of  the  effect  of  a 
"marked-down"  price.  The  figures  $4.98  have  a  quality  of  their 
own,  or  rather  the  price  has,  that  is  quite  inexpressible  by  the 
formula  "  .$0  minus  2c. "     Quantity  has  its  quality. 

In  a  succession  of  identical  terms,  then,  each  term  has  two 
aspects,  spatial  and  temporal,  objective  and  subjective,  one  always 
identical  with  itself,  the  other  sj)ecific  because  of  the  unique 
quality  its  addition  gives  the  collective  whole  of  the  series.  Now, 
motion  is  just  such  a  "qualifying,"  the  subjective  aspect  of  what, 
objectively,  is  a  succession  of  identical  terms,  to  wit  the  movable 
in  successive  positions.  It  is  always  the  same  movable,  but  in 
the  .synthesis,  the  images  of  it  that  memory  calls  earlier  interpene- 
trate with  the  actual  image;  the  synthesis,  the  interpenetration, 
is  motion.  Motion  is  real,  and  absolute;  it  is  subjective,  however, 
not  objective.  To  represent  motion  is  to  objectify  it.  That  is 
what  Zeno  did,  and  what  everyone  must  do  for  practical  purposes. 
But  Zeno's  purpose  was  speculative,  and  that.  Professor  Bergson 


16.  But  Bergson  apparently  does  not  see  that  even  the  word  "interpenetrate" 
falls  to  express  anything  radically  different  in  temporal  "multiplicity"  from  a 
certain  character  of  spatial  multiplicity.  Cf.  pp.  62,  101.  In  this,  as  in  all  its 
argument,  intuitlonism  arguing  is  inevitably  intuitionism  contradicting  itself. 
Itis  Ineffable  philosophy  (see  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psycholoay  and  Scientific  Meth- 
ods. Vol.  IV.  p.  123.) 


5i  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [12Jt 

thinks,  is  fatally  different.  When  you  objectify  motion  you  deny 
it,  for  its  essence  is  subjective.  Strictly  speaking,  Zeno  was 
right  in  finding  motion  unthinkable;  he  was  wrong  only  in  sui)posing 
that  what  is  unthinkable  is  ipso  facto  inijwssible. 

Evidently,  the  ego  has  these  two  aspects.  The  ego  touches  the 
external  world;  and  its  sensations,  though  fused  in  each  other, 
retain  something  of  the  reciprocal  externality  which  objectively 
characterizes  their  causes.  Now,  in  dreaming,  the  ego  does  not 
touch  the  external  world,  and,  in  dreaming,  time  is  not  homo- 
geneous; we  do  not  measure  time,  in  dreams,  but  only  feel  it. 
For  sleep  retards  the  play  of  organic  functions  and  modifies  the 
surface  of  communication  between  the  ego  and  external  things. 
But  we  need  not  sleep,  to  be  thus  withdrawn  from  en\ir<)iiment. 
As  I  compose  this  train  of  thought,  the  hour  strikes.  When  I 
notice  the  striking,  I  know  some  strokes  have  sounded  which  I 
did  not  notice.  I  know  even  their  number,  four.  I  know  it  by 
filling  out  the  "melody,"  as  it  were,  of  which  I  am  now  conscious. 
I  found  the  "four"  in  a  way  that  was  not  counting,  at  all.  The 
number  of  strokes  has  its  (juality,  and  anytliing  but  four  fails  to 
suit,  differs  in  quality.  A  counted  four  and  a  felt  four  are  absolute- 
ly different  forms  of  multiplicity,  and  each  is  nmltiplicity.  Under 
the  ego  of  clearly -defined  and  countable  states  is  the  real  ego 
which  it  symbolizes,  in  which  succession  implies  fusion  and  or- 
ganization. The  states  of  this  real  ego  language  cannot  seize, 
for  that  were  to  objectify  it  and  fix  its  mobility.  In  giving  these 
states  the  form  of  those  of  the  symbolic  ego,  language  makes 
them  fall  into  the  common  domain  of  space,  where  they  straight- 
way become  common  and  impersonal.  This  common  and  im- 
personal ego  is  the  social  and  practical  ego;  this  is  the  ego  that 
uses  language. 

To  language  is  due  the  illusion  thai  (lualities  are  permanent. 
But  objects  change  by  mere  familiarity.  We  dislike,  in  manhood, 
smells  and  tastes  which  we  call  the  same  as  those  we  liked  in 
childhood.  But  they  are  not  the  same.  It  is  only  their  causes 
that  remain  the  same.  The  interpenetrating  elements  of  con- 
scious states  are  already  deformed  the  moment  a  numerical  nud- 
tiplicity  is  discovered  in  the  confused  mass.  Just  now  it  had  a 
subtle  and  unique  coloration  borrowed  from  its  organization  in 
developing  life;  here  it  is  decolored  and  ready  to  receive  a  name. 

This  is  the  error  of  the   nssociationistie   school.     Psychology 


ISfi]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  55 

cannot  reason  concerning  facts  being  accomplished,  as  it  may 
concerning  accomplished  facts.  The  accomplishing  of  a  fact  can 
in  no  wise  enter  into  discourse.  It  is  unthinkable  in  precisely 
the  .same  way  as  motion;  or  rather,  it  is  the  .same  case.  Psycho- 
logj'  cannot  presentthe  living  ego  as  an  association  of  terms  mutually 
distinct  and  juxtaposited  in  a  homogeneous  medium. ^^  And  as- 
sociation is  just  conceptualism  applied  to  psychology.  Its  prob- 
lems of  personality  have  to  be  absurdly  stated,  in  order  to  be  stated 
at  all.  The  terms  of  sucli  problems  deny  what  the  problem  posits, 
merely  by  being  terms  or  names;  they  name  the  unnamable  and 
define  the  indefinable.  The  solution  is  to  cease  thinking  spatially 
of  that  which  i>  temi>oral,  to  take  the  other  attitude.'**  Or,  the 
author  says  here,  using  merely  a  different  phrase,  the  solution  is 
to  substitute  the  real  and  concrete  ego  for  its  symbolic  repre- 
sentation. 

This  .second  chapter  of  Time  and  Free  IVill  undertakes  to  show 
that  the  successiveness  of  conscious  states  makes  them  uncount- 
able. Simultaneity  is  indispensable  to  distinctness,  and  so  to 
number.  One  can  count  the  spatialized  symbols  of  conscious 
states  because  these  are  not  successive,  but  simultaneous. 

P.sychic  multij)licity  is  non-numerical  in  the  same  sense  and  for 
the  same  reason  that  psychic  intensity  is  non-(juantitative,  namely 
that  it  is  pure  heterogeneity  and  temporality.  In  the  foregoing 
report,  I  have  .sometimes  mitigated  the  baldness  of  the  paradox 
as  it  is  stated  by  Hergson,  by  substituting  the  term  "  variousness " 
for  "nndtiplicity,"  in  speaking  of  psychic  facts.  After  all,  it 
was  a  thankless  subterfuge — an  impertinence,  perhaps,  since 
Berg.son  himself  is  frank  enough  to  insist  that  psychic  multiplicity 
is  as  genuine  multiplicity  as  the  spatial  and  material  sort.     The 

17.  The  living  c^o  is  a  fact-in-the-accomplishing.  You  cannot  really  discourse 
about  iti  If  psychology  ever  seems  to  manage  this  (and  if  this  present  book  of 
Bergson's  seems  to  manage  it),  the  ego  discoursed  aliout  is,  in  that  fact,  proven  to 
be  not  the  concrete  and  living  ego  at  all,  but  the  impersonal  and  objective  one. 

IS.  The  attitude,  that  is,  of  intuition,  which  we  have  called  the  temporal 
attitude.  The  terms  "spatial,"  "logical,"  "conceptual."  applied  here  .so  often 
to  the  word  "thought,"  are  epithets  of  thought  generally.  There  is  no  thought. 
In  any  meaning  of  the  word  more  specific  than  "consciousness."  that  is  not  logical, 
conceptual  and  spatial  in  this  Bergsonian  sense. 

If  we  cannot  conceptualize  our  psychic  facts,  we  cannot  think  them,  then — the 
meaning  is  the  same.  But  if  we  say  that  anything  (which  we  name  and,  in  the 
saying,  define  and  think)  is  unnamable.  Indefinable  and  cannot  be  thought,  "we 
contradict  ourselves.  The  doctrine,  if  true,  must  mean  something  that  is  not  a 
self-contradiction.  Does  it  mean  that  what  we  name  and  discourse  about  is  only 
the  spatialized  symbol  of  the  psychic  fact?  There  can  be  little  doubt,  I  think, 
that  this  is  Bergson's  meaning:  but  then  the  psychic  fact  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
be  symbolized:  and  the  distinction  between  a  symbol  and  a  name,  by  virtue  of 
which  a  thing  which  can  be  symbolized  may  not  be  namable,  requires  explanation. 


56  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [126 

difference  is  that  the  former  is  indistinct  and  the  latter  distinct. 
But  this  diflference  is  abysmal — indeed,  it  is  absolute.  All  the 
power  of  Bergson's  forceful  style  is  concentrated  on  it.  The  point 
is  turned  and  re-turned  in  every  variety  of  expression.  At  the 
same  time,  the  common  multiplicity  belonging  in  both  concep- 
tions is  emphasized  as  much  as  their  difference.  The  thesis  thus 
reduces  to  this,  that  two  varieties  of  the  same  genus  are  "abso- 
lutely different;"  for  we  are  explicitly  advised,  on  one  hand, 
that  there  is  a  multipUcity  which  is  distinct,  and  a  multiplicity 
which  is  indistinct;  each  is  multiplicity.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
one  is  numerical  and  the  other  *'has  no  analogy  with  number.''' 

In  view  of  the  superior  qualities  of  the  mind  that  is  guilty  of 
this  unreasonableness,  the  conviction  of  sincerity  which  it  carries 
tortures  the  conscientious  critic.  One  cannot  approve  of  the 
intolerant  scorn  of  a  certain  book,  in  which  Bergson's  arguments 
are  vilified  as  vain  display,  mere  word-play;  but  patience  is  over- 
taxed in  finding  one's  way  through  the  plausibility  of  this  chapter. 
The  thesis,  certainly,  may  be  dismissed  from  any  consideration 
whatever.  Because  of  it,  one  knows  in  advance,  beyond  per- 
adventure,  that  there  is  no  validity  in  any  argument  in  its  defense. 
Yet,  in  spite  of  all,  the  chai)ter  oli;»llcnges  study;  and  thorough 
study  of  it  cannot  fail  to  put  tiic  truth  in  clearer  light,  just  because 
its  error  is  so  plausible. 

Counting  is  synthesis,  the  argument  goes;  but  a  synthesized 
succession  is  not  a  succession,  it  is  a  sinmltancity.  And  sinuil- 
taneity  presupposes  spatial  determination  in  the  coexistent 
elements.  From  Bergson's  point  of  view,  it  is  a  radical  error, 
however  universal  an  error,  to  regard  the  relation  of  simultaneity 
as  a  temporal  determination.  In  fact,  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  temporal  determination;  and  every  determination,  for  Bergson, 
not  only  is  not  temporal,  but  is  spatial.  Like  the  argument 
about  non-quantitative  intensity,  this  argument  for  non-plural 
multiplicity  (save  the  mark!)  turns  on  the  equation  of  homo- 
geneity with  space.  But  the  i)resent  argument  involves  its  own 
peculiar  fallacy,  as  well,  namely  the  fallacy  which  Professor  Perry 
describes'"  as  confusion  of  a  relation  symbolized  with  the  relation 
between  symbols.  "It  is  commonly  supposed,"  Perry  writes, 
"that  when  a  complex  is  represented  by  a  fornuila,  the  elements 


19.     Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  pp.  2:12-4. 


127]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  57 

of  the  complex  must  have  the  same  relation  as  that  which  subsists 
between  the  parts  of  the  formula ;  whereas,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
formula  as  a  whole  represents  or  describes  a  complex  other  than 
itself.  If  I  describe  a  as  'to  the  right  of  6,'  does  any  diflBculty 
arise  because  in  my  formula  a  is  to  the  left  of  6?  If  I  speak  of  a 
as  greater  than  b,  am  I  to  assume  that  because  my  symbols  are 
outside  one  another  that  a  and  b  must  be  outside  one  another? 
Such  a  supposition  would  imply  a  most  naive  acceptance  of  that 
very  *  copy  theoiy '  of  knowledge  which  pragmatism  has  so  severely 
condemned.  And  yet  such  a  supposition  seems  everywhere  to 
underlie  the  anti-intellectualist's  polemic.  The  intellect  is  de- 
scribed as  substituting  for  the  interpenetration  of  the  real  terms 
[in  an  "indistinct"  psychic  multiplicity]  the  juxtaposition  of 
their  symbols;  as  though  analysis  discovered  terms,  and  then 
conferred  relations  of  its  own.  .  .  Terms  are  found  in  relation, 
and  may  be  thus  described  without  any  more  artificiality,  without 
any  more  imposing  of  the  forms  of  the  mind  on  its  subject-matter, 
than  is  involved  in  the  bare  mention  of  a  single  term. 

"...  one  may  mean  continuity  despite  the  fact  that  the 
symbols  and  words  are  discrete.  The  word  'blue'  may  mean 
blue,  although  the  word  is  not  blue.  Similarly,  continuity  may 
be  an  arrangement  meant  by  a  discontinuous  arrangement  of 
words  and  symbols. " 

So  of  the  simultaneity  or  coexistence  among  the  conceptual 
symbols  by  which  successive  psychic  states  are  counted:  there  is 
nothing  in  such  a  relation  among  the  symbols  to  falsify  the  process 
of  counting  as  a  cognitive  i)rocess  whose  meaning  is  a  non-simul- 
taneous relation  among  the  psychic  facts  symbolized.  As  was 
noted  above,'^"  the  quantitative  determination  of  psychic 
facts  depends  solely  on  an  aspect  of  homogeneitj'  essential 
to  such  facts,  for  which  aspect  no  better  evidence  is  possible  than 
that  other  aspect  which  Bergson  attributes  to  them,  of  hetero- 
geneity ;  for  the  two  concei)tions,  instead  of  excluding  each  other, 
imply  each  other  absolutely.  All  that  is  necessary,  in  order  that 
psychic  facts  should  be  countable,  is  that  they  should  possess  an 
aspect  of  homogeneity.  And  for  this,  spatiality  is  unnecessary;  for 
spatiality  is  a  conception  distinct  from  homogeneity. 

Bergson's  identification  of  homogeneity  with  spatiality  is  a  case 


20.      Pp.  42.  43.  Cf.  also  below,  p.  93. 


58  University  of  Karisas  Humanistic  Studies  [1S8 

of  what  Professor  Perry  calls  "definition  by  initial  predication. "-' 
Space  is  homogeneous;  therefore  homogeneity  is  space.  As  if 
the  fact  that  homogeneity  is  a  character  of  space  were  anything 
against  its  being  a  character  also  of  time  or  anything  else.  The 
following  is  the  justification  offered  by  Bergson  for  identifying 
homogeneity  with  space:  "If  space  is  to  be  defined  as  the  homo- 
geneous, it  seems  that  inversely  every  homogeneous  and  unbound- 
ed medium  will  be  space.  For,  homogeneity  here  consisting  in  the 
absence  of  every  quality,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  two  forms  of  the 
homogeneous  could  be  distinguished  from  one  another.""  The 
first  clause  begs  the  question  by  defining  space  as  "the"  homo- 
geneous. Such  identification  of  space  and  homogeneity  is  the 
point  to  be  proved.  The  second  .sentence  begs  the  (juestion  again, 
where  homogeneity  is  supposed  "here"  (/.  e.  in  the  case  of  space) 
to  consist  in  the  absence  of  everj'  quality.  Moreover,  as  we  have 
noted  above  (p.  43),  s[)ace  possesses  a  very  determinate  quahty, 
direction,  which  differentiates  it  from  other  homogeneity. 
Finally,  it  can  be  true  that  homogeneity  is  absence  of  cjuality  only 
on  the  Bergsonian  assumptions  tliat  (juaHty  is  exclusively  subjec- 
tive, that  homogeneity  is  exclusively  objective,  and  that  only  the 
subjective  is  positive.  Now,  if  (]uality  is  not  objective,  judgments 
cannot  be  made  concerning  it;  but  Bergson  is  constantly  making 
such  judgments.  And  to  distinguish,  in  point  of  homogeneity 
or  of  positivity,  between  "the  subjective"  and  "the  ol)jective" 
is  to  reify  two  equally  abstract  aspects  of  positive  reality.  The 
quality  of  the  homogeneous  is  doubtless  simple,  and  so  indefinable. 
But  Bergson  nowhere  shows  how  the  honu)geneous  is  less  positive 
than  the  heterogeneous,  although  the  thesis  is  the  sum  and  sub- 
stance of  his  philosophy.  Lacking  further  light  on  the  point,  one 
can  only  invoke  such  ex])eriences  as  the  simple  colors,  for  instance, 
— or,  for  that  matter,  any  simple  quaUty — for  cases  of  reality  as 
positive  as  any  heterogeneity,  and,  obviously,  no  le.ss  qual- 
ified. And  nothing  seems  easier  than  the  distinction  between 
redness,  for  instance,  and  spatiality.  Bergson's  whole  dialectic 
rests  on  rerfication  of  such  correlative  abstractions  as  homo- 
geneity and  heterogeneity,  tiuality  and  relation  etc.  in  a 
"purity"  which  not  only  is  not  concretely  experienced,  but 
is   not    even   capable   of  being    conceived,    because    each    con- 

21.  Op.  cit..  p.  128. 

22.  Time  avd  Free  Will.  p.  98. 


129]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsoris  Philosophy  59 

cept  drags  the  other  ineluctably  into  its  own  definition.  If 
either  space  or  homogeneity  were  indeed  absence  of  quality, 
they  could  not  be  distinguished  from  time,  nor  from  heterogene- 
ity, nor  from  anything  else;  in  short,  they  could  not  be 
conceived  at  all. 

The  present  essay  aims  to  report  Bergson's  own  work  with  a 
fair  degree  of  fulness;  but  it  is  beyond  my  plan  to  follow  exposition 
with  criticism  point  by  point  in  the  details,  even,  in  some  cases, 
when  the.se  are  of  imp<irtant  and  wide  implication.  For  discussion 
of  Bergson's  contention  (based  on  analysis  of  the  idea  of  velocity, 
as  outlined  above)  that  mechanics  has  nothing  to  do  with  time, 
the  reader  is  referred  to  pages  255-61  of  Perry's  Present  Philosophi- 
cal Tendencies.  Perry  shows,  in  this  passage,  that  such  a  con- 
tention, again,  depends  on  "confusing  the  symbol  with  what  it 
means.  To  one  who  falls  into  this  confusion,  it  may  appear  that 
an  equation  cannot  refer  to  time  because  the  structure  of  the 
equation  itself  is  not  temporal;  because  the  symbols  are  simul- 
taneously present  in  the  equation.  But  if  /  is  one  of  the  terms  of 
the  equation,  and  /  means  time,  then  the  equation  means  a 
temi)oral  process.  Furthermore,  an  equation  may  define  a 
relation,  such  as  = ,  <,  or  >,  between  temporal  quantities,  in  which 
case  the  full  meaning  of  the  equation  is  still  temporal.  For 
changes,  events,  or  even  j)ure  intervals,  may  stand  in  non-temporal 
relations,  such  as  tho.se  above,  without  its  in  the  least  vitiating 
their  temporality. " 

Bergson's  .solution  of  Zeno's  paradoxes  is  another  detail  of  this 
chapter  which  is  of  a  good  deal  of  interest;  but  it  applies  no  new 
principle  to  the  support  of  the  impossibility  of  counting  psychic 
facts.  Without  a  clearer  conception  of  the  commerce  or  inter- 
section between  time  and  space,  which  he  characterizes  only  by 
the  name  of  "simultaneity,"  his  reply  to  Zeno  leaves  the  question 
of  the  divisibility  of  time  as  problematic  as  ever.  Achilles  out- 
strips the  tortoise,  he  says,  "because  each  of  Achilles'  steps  and 
each  of  the  tortoise's  steps  are  indivisible  acts  in  so  far  as  they  are 
movements,  and  are  different  magnitudes  in  so  far  as  they  are 
space.  "^^  They  are  indivisible  in  the  same  sense  in  which  a 
living  organism  is  indivisible:  if  you  divide  them,  no  division  is  a 
part  of  that  which  teas.     But  the  trouble  is  that  they  are  divisible 


2.3.      Time  and  Free  Will,  p   11.3. 


60 


University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [130 


also  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  organism  is  divisible.  It  is  the 
most  extravagant  of  assumptions  that  analysis  of  a  living  body 
into  right  and  left  etc.— which,  to  be  sure,  is  serviceable  to  activity 
upon  it— is,  because  of  its  service  to  action,  not  a  character  of  the 
object  itself.  And  of  motion  the  same  sort  of  analysis  is  a  patent 
fact  of  experience:  there  is  an  earlier,  middle  and  latter  phase. 
The  possibility  of  this  patent  fact  is  the  crux  of  the  problem.  No 
extant  answer  to  Zeno  is  satisfactory  to  everybody.  I  shall 
refer  the  reader  to  Professor  Fullerton's  treatment  of  the  para- 
doxes, in  Chapter  XI  of  his  System  of  Metaphysics,  iis  the  solution 
which  seems  to  me  to  be  at  the  same  time  the  most  closely  related 
of  any  that  I  know,  to  Bergson's,  and  free  of  Bergson's  error. 
Bergson's  solution  has  at  least  this  element  of  truth,  that  Zeno 
confuses  the  space  traversed  with  something  else  concerned  in 
every  case  of  motion.  Fullerton  makes  a  distinction  between 
any  actual  experience  of  space  or  time,  and  the  jK)ssibility  of 
indefinitely  magnified  substitutes  for  such  exijcrience;  and  shows 
a  way  in  which  motion  can  be  relegate<l  to  the  former  ("apparent " 
space)  and  denied  to  the  latter  ("real"  space)  without  either 
denying  reality  to  motion  or  infinite  divisibility  to  real  space  and 
time. 

Bergson's  diflferentiation  of  temporal  succession  from  spatial 
seriality  gets  all  its  cogency  from  an  exclusive  attention,  when 
consciousness  is  concerned,  to  the  aspects  of  heterogeneity  (quality) 
and  compenetration  (continuity)  which  consciousness  shows;  and, 
when  space  is  concerned,  to  its  a^spects  of  homogeneity  (quantity) 
and  juxtaposition  of  parts  (discreteness).  As  always,  with  correl- 
ative abstractions,  Bergson  reifies  them:  they  exclude  each  other, 
for  him,  whereas,  in  truth,  they  imply  each  other,  entering  into 
each  other's  definition  so  that  eadi  is  unthinkable  except  by  means 
of  the  other.  Time  is  continuous,  Bergson  insists  rightly;  but 
jumps  to  the  conclusion  that  therefore  time  is  not  discrete.  Time 
is  heterogeneous,  therefore  not  homogeneous.  Space  is  discrete 
(its  parts  spread  out),  therefore  not  continuous;  homogeneous, 
therefore  not  heterogeneous.  If  any  demonstration  is  necessarj' 
that  these  terms  do  imply  each  other,  instead  of  excluding  each 
other,  the  case  of  heterogeneity  and  homogeneity  is  only  the  case 
of  resemblance  and  difference  (cf.  page  44).  In  regard  to  the 
heterogeneity  of  space,  its  differentiation  by  way  of  direction 
must  not  be  forgotten.     As  for  the  other  i)air  of  terms,  wntiniiity 


131]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  61 

can  manifest  itself  only  in  extenso,  and  discreteness  requires  a 
separating  medium. 

Wherever  Bergson  objects  to  expressing  time  in  terms  of  space, 
the  real  objection  is  to  the  expression  of  time  in  terms  of  homo- 
geneity. This  he  would  not  only  admit,  but  insist  upon.  But 
his  demonstration  that  homogeneity  is  a  character  exclusively 
spatial  is  a  petitio  principii.-*  Of  the  attempt  to  measure  a  minute, 
he  writes  as  follows:  "I  say,  e.  g.,  that  a  minute  has  just  elapsed, 
and  I  mean  by  this  that  a  pendulum,  beating  the  seconds,  has 
completed  sixty  oscillations.  If  I  picture  these  sixty  oscillations 
to  myself  all  at  once,  by  a  single  mental  perception,  I  exclude  by 
hypothesis  the  idea  of  a  succession.  I  do  not  think  of  sixty  strokes 
which  succeed  one  another,  but  of  sixty  points  on  a  fixed  line, 
each  one  of  which  symbolizes,  so  to  speak,  an  oscillation  of  the 
pendulum.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  I  wish  to  picture  these  sixty 
oscillations  in  succession,  but  without  altering  the  way  they  are 
produced  in  space,  I  shall  be  compelled  to  think  of  each  oscillation 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  recollection  of  the  preceding  one,  for  space 
has  j)reserved  no  trace  of  it;  but  by  doing  so  I  shall  condemn 
myself  to  remain  forever  in  the  present;  I  shall  give  up  the  attempt 
to  think  a  succession  or  a  duration. " 

Notwithstanding  his  acutene.ss  as  a  psychologist,  Bergson  misses 
the  nature  of  the  apperception  both  of  sixty  points  on  a  line  and  of 
sixty  oscillations  of  a  pendulum.  And  the  impossibility  of  count- 
ing psychic  facts  depends  on  this  misapprehension.  He  misses 
the  fact  that  an  apperception  of  sixty  points  on  a  line  includes, 
as  an  essential  feature,  the  serial  order,  the  here-and-there  deter- 
mination (a  distinctive  qualitative  determination)  of  this  spatial 
fact.  And  he  misses  the  fact  that  an  apperception  of  a  non- 
spatial  rhythm  includes,  as  an  essential  feature,  the  successive 
order,  the  earlier-and-later  determination,  of  this  psychic  fact. 
Now,  seriality  is  not  succession,  if  you  like,  except  in  so  far  as 
each  is  order.  But  this  is  no  more  than  to  say  that  the  two 
orders,  time  and  space,  are  distinguishable — are  two,  in  fact. 
It  is  not  the  slightest  obstruction  to  conceiving  each  as  order,  and 
as  numerically  determined.  For  there  is  no  evidence  except 
Bergson's  fundamental  fallacy  of  "definition  by  initial  predica- 
tion," to  show  why  homogeneity  and  order,  as  such,  are    exclu- 


24.     Cf.  above,  p.  58. 


62 


University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [132 


sively  spatial.  The  discreteness  of  parts  of  space  is  thinkable 
only  by  the  intervening  spaces:  space  is  as  continuous  (as  "com- 
penetrative")  as  time.^^  On  the  other  hand,  the  compenetration  of 
time  is  not  only  nothing  against  its  divisibility,  but  divisibility 
and  compenetration  (in  the  only  rigorous  meaning  the  word  will 
bear,  that  is,  continuity)  are  indispensable  to  each  other,  inverse 
aspects  of  each  other.  You  can  divide  only  what  is  connected, 
as  you  can  connect  only  what  is  distinct.  Time,  then,  is  as 
discrete  as  space. 

For  every  instance  of  temporal  *' compenetration,"  and  "soli- 
darity," its  perfect  spatial  analogue  is  plain  to  the  inspection  of 
anyone  who  will  only  look  that  way,  to  anyone  whose  attention 
is  not  hypnotized  by  an  ulterior  purpose  to  its  exclusion.^  Thus 
the  melodic  phrase  is  present  in  each  of  its  parts  as  much  as,  and 
no  more  than,  the  mosaic  figure  is  present  in  each  of  its  parts. 
The  "felt  four"  of  the  clock  strokes  is  felt  as  four  not  otherwise, 
I  think,  than  a  four  which  might  figure  in  the  pattern  of  a  frieze. 
The  same  limitations,  moreover,  apply  to  such  felt  multiplicity, 
whether  of  rhythm  or  of  pattern.  It  must  be  a  relatively  simple 
complex,  to  be  apperceived,  in  either  case.  You  could  not  feel 
fifty,  and  the  difficulty  is  the  same  difficulty  in  time  as  in  space. 
One  measures  a  minute  or  a  century  just  as  one  measures  an  inch 
or  the  distance  from  the  earth  to  the  sun :  the  indispensable  con- 
dition is  the  continuity  and  homogeneity  which  belong  to  l)oth 
quantities. 

The  proposition  that  oscillations  of  a  i)endulum  measure 
nothing,  but  count  simultaneities  apparently  means  that  oscilla- 
tions, as  physical  facts,  have  no  duration  of  their  own,  and  so 
cannot  overlie  duration  as  a  unit  of  measurement.  This  would 
at  least  be  an  intelligible,  even  if  a  false,  representation;  but,  if 
oscillations  cannot  measure,  how  can  they  count?  What  is  just 
that  difference  between  counting  and  measuring,  by  virtue  of 
which  that  which  can  count  cannot  measure?  Simultaneity 
Bergson  defines  as  the  intersection  of  si)ace  and  time.  Now, 
counting,  as  well  as  measuring,  implies  a  continuum.     Measuring, 


25.  In  order  to  give  any  meaning  to  the  term  •compenetrating"  or  "inter- 
penetration  (which  I  take  to  be  mutually  equivalent,  in  Uergson  s  use).  1  am 
compelled  to  Interpret  them  as  synonymous  with  the  "  compactness  "  of  a  continuum 
—as  synonymous,  in  fact,  with  "continuity."  Bergson  does  not  make  clear  how 
these  terms  can  mean  anything  else  (cf.  below,  p.  101 .) 

^■u^^-     Bergson  himself,  of  course,  is  perfectly  aware — in  other  connections — of 
the  continuity  of  space ! 


133]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsoris  Philosophy  63 

certainly,  if  it  is  theoretically  perfect,  can  apply  only  to  a  continu- 
um; but  counting,  which  obviously  presupposes  discreteness, 
then  requires  also  the  indispensable  condition  and  correlative  of 
discreteness,  which  is  continuity.  The  intersection  of  space  and 
time  thus  evidently  involves  equal  continuity  and  discreteness  in 
both;  if  they  can  intersect,  and  their  intersections  are  countable, 
each  is  both  countable  and  measurable.  The  "purely"  temporal 
phenomena  of  our  conscious  life,  although  interpenetrating, 
"correspond  individually"  to  an  oscillation  of  the  pendulum, 
which,  though  a  "purely"  spatial  phenomenon,  "occurs  at  the 
same  time  with"  the  former.  Such  "endosmotic  commerce" 
between  psychical  and  physical  events  seems  to  be  decisive  for  a 
real  community  of  nature  between  their  respective  forms,  time 
and  space — such,  for  instance,  as  common  homogeneity  and 
continuity. 


Chapter  II 

MIND  AND  MATTER,  SPIRIT  AND  BODY 

Bergson  regards  knowledge  of  oneself  as  the  optimal  case  of 
knowing;  oneself,  he  thinks,  is  the  sample  of  reality  which  best 
serves  for  an  acquaintance  with  the  nature  of  reality  in  general. 
"The  existence  of  which  we  are  most  assured  and  which  we  know 
best  is  unquestionably  our  own,  for  of  cverj'  other  object  we  have 
notions  which  may  be  considered  external  and  superficial,  whereas, 
of  ourselves,  our  perception  is  internal  and  jjrofouiid."-^  It  is  this 
perfect  or  optimal  relation  of  identity  or  inwardness — which  one 
bears  to  oneself — that  is  the  condition  of  true  (j.  e.  intuitive) 
knowledge.  And  in  this  case  we  find  existence  to  be  a  i)eri)etual 
flow  of  transition.  That  we  think  of  our  states  as  distinct  from 
each  other  is  due  to  the  fact  that  reflection  on  one's  own  existence 
is,  unlike  the  flow  of  that  existence  itself,  necessarily  discontinuous. 
It  is  only  now  and  then  that  motives  arise  which  turn  the  attention 
to  the  self  as  an  object,  like  others,  for  examination.  The  flow  of 
change  is  not  uniform,  to  be  sure.  It  is  quite  imperceptible  to 
our  reflective  attention  most  of  the  time,  but  if  it  ever  ceased,  we 
should  at  that  moment  cease  to  exist.  Oidy  the  relatively  sudden 
and  interesting  periods  of  transition  get  our  attention.  Then  we 
see  a  new  "state  of  consciousness"  which  we  add  to  the  others 
that  we  have  mentally  strung  together  in  a  temjjoral  line.  So  we 
conceive  of  our  history  as  the  sura  of  elements  as  distinct  as  beads 
on  a  string. 

This  intellectualistic  view  of  the  self  eliminates  the  i)eculiar 
characteristic  of  its  reality,  namely,  its  duration,  or  the  flow  of  its 
change.  Like  a  snowball,  accumulating  its  substance  as  it  rolls, 
duration  goes  on  preserving  itself  in  incessant  change  that  accumu- 


27.     Creatitt  Evolution,  p.  1. 

6i 


135]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  65 

lates  all  its  past.  Time,  Bergson  says,  is  the  very  stuff  the  psycho- 
logical life  is  made  of.  "There  is,  moreover,  no  stuff  more  resistant 
nor  more  substantial. "-'' 

Life  and  inertia  or  matter  are  two  antagonistic  principles  or 
tendencies.  Life  is  the  positive  and  active  principle;  reality  and 
duration  are  predicable  only  of  life.  Matter  is  an  "inversion"  or 
"interruption"  of  life;  its  value  is  negative  to  life  and  to  reality. 
"All  that  which  .seems  positive  to  the  physicist  and  to  the  geomet- 
rician would  become,  from  this  new  point  of  view,  an  interruption 
or  inversion  of  true  positivity,  which  would  have  to  be  defined 
in  psychological  terms.  "-^  Matter  is  a  determination  of  reality  in 
much  the  same  sense  as  that  in  which  the  reality  of  the  Platonic 
idea  suffers  diminution  under  the  influence  of  the  principle  of 
not-being,  resulting  in  a  world  of  sensiljle  experience  or  of  appear- 
ance. Bergson  points  out  that  the  real  in  Plato  is  the  timeless, 
motionless,  definite  idea,  and  the  relatively  unreal  is  the  ever- 
changing  "infinite"  or  indefinable  datum  of  experience,  to  which 
duration  is  essential.  Bergson  reverses  the  Platonic  metaphysics: 
reality  is  the  ever-changing  and  indefinable;  rather,  it  is  change 
itself.  "There  are  no  things,  there  are  only  actions." 
".  .  things  and  states  are  only  views,  taken  by  our  mind,  of 
becoming."'"'  Tiie  principle  antagonistic  to  reality  gives  rise  to 
the  timeless,  definite  concept,  which  is  a  view  or  appearance  of 
reality  operated  by  intelligence  in  the  service  of  action.  As  our 
practical  interests  break  up  the  continuum  of  time  into  discrete 
states,  so  they  break  up  the  continuum  of  matter  into  distinct 
bodies.  The  active  antagonism  of  time,  which  is  pure  quality  or 
heterogeneity,  and  space,  wliich  is  pure  quantity  or  homogeneity, 
results  in  the  world  of  our  experience,  comprising  "states"  of 
consciousness  and  things  or  objects. 

The  relation  between  life  and  matter  in  the  evolution  of  the 
world,  Bergson  represents  by  the  figure  of  a  generation  of  steam  in 
a  boiler. ^^  Life,  the  positive  principle,  streams  or  flows,  hke  the 
steam,  by  the  force  which  is  its  very  nature.  In  its  course,  this 
vital  impetus  is  checked,  as  a  jet  of  steam  is  checked,  by  its  con- 
densation, and  falls  back  upon  itself  in  drops,  retarding,  but  not 
annihilating,  the  flow.     But  we  are  warned  that  the  figure  must  be 

28.  Ibid.,  p.  4. 

29.  Ibid.,  p.  208. 

30.  Ibid.,  p.  248 

31.  /6((/„p.  247. 


66  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [136 

corrected  in  that  the  interruption  or  inversion  of  the  impetus  is 
due  to  a  principle  inherent  in  the  impetus  itself,  not  to  an  external 
determination.  If  there  were  such  an  external  principle,  the  two 
would  seem  coordinate  in  reality,  but  the  reality  of  matter  is  as 
the  reality  of  rest,  which,  as  the  negation  of  motion,  is  nothing 
positive,  yet  is  not  a  mere  naught. 

Sometimes,  in  reading  Bergson,  it  seems  very  clear  that  reality 
and  matter  must  exclude  each  other,  since  one  is  the  negation  of 
the  other;  and  perception  and  conception,  whose  object  is  matter, 
are  not  knowledge,  because  that  object  is  unreal.  Moreover,  not 
only  is  the  stuflf  of  reality  that  psychic  process  which  is  life  and 
lapsing  time,  but  there  is  no  stuff  more  resistant  nor  more  sub- 
stantial. And  in  numerous  other  ways  the  mutual  exclusion  of 
reality  and  matter  seems  quite  fundamental  to  Bergsonisni.  One 
can  never  remain  long  in  any  security  about  this,  however.  If 
Bergsonism  is  Platonism  reversed,  it  is  natural  that  the  iKfuliar- 
ities  of  the  latter  should  reap{x?ar  in  some  form.  Platonic  not- 
being  is  much  too  important  and  too  active  to  be  denied  a  C(KX|ual 
positivity  with  being.  Over  and  above  these  "worlds, "  moreover, 
there  is  that  one  in  which  we  live,  with  a  third  status.  Perhaps  it 
is  this  which  is  most  like  Bergsonian  matter — "nothing  iK>sitive, 
yet  not  a  mere  naught"!  In  tiie  letter  from  which  I  have  already 
quoted,  Monsieur  Bergson  wrote  me,  concerning  a  previous  paper 
of  mine:^'  "You  give  me  the  choice  l>etween  'yes'  and  *no,' 
whereas  I  cannot  respond  with  either,  but  must  mix  them.  In 
each  particular  case,  the  'yes'  and  'no'  have  to  be  ap|)ortioned, 
and  this  is  just  why  the  philosophy  I  adhere  to  is  susc^eptible  of 
improvement  and  progress.  For  instance,  you  find  that  my 
premises  lead  to  this  conclusion:  'Matter  has  no  duration;  but 
duration  is  synonymous  with  reality;  therefore  matter  is  not  real. ' 
But,  to  my  mind,  matter  has  exactly  the  same  reality  a.s  rest,  which 
exists  only  as  negation  of  motion,  yet  is  something  other  than 
absolute  nothingness.  All  that  is  positive  in  my  'vital  impetus' 
is  motion;  stoppage  of  this  motion  constitutes  materiality;  the 
latter,  therefore,  is  nothing  positive,  yet  not  a  mere  naught, 
absolute  nothingness  being  no  more  stoppage  than  motion. " 

If  one  seek  (it  is  not  to  be  found,  I  think,  in  Bergson's  writings) 
an  explanation  of  this  abatement  or  diminution  of  the   clan  Htal, 


32.     Jour.  Phil.  Psy.  and  Sci.  ^frth..  Vol.  V,  No.  22. 


137]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  67 

this  tendency  toward  rest,  the  problem  turns  into  the  very  ancient 
problem  of  the  polarity  of  being  in  subject  and  object.  In  Platon- 
ism,  matter  arises  as  product  of  an  eternal  antagonism  between  two 
coeval  principles,  the  Idea  and  Xot-being.  Not-being  is  thus 
something  efficient,  something  that  is  capable  of  entering  as  a 
factor,  together  with  the  Idea,  into  a  product,  the  Sensible  Object. 
The  truth  is,  therefore,  that  Not-being  is  something  very  real:  it 
is  something  because  it  does  something.  It  is  as  real  as  the  Idea, 
because  it  is  as  efficient  as  the  Idea.  And  in  the  Bergsonian 
creative  evolution  there  often  seems  just  such  an  antagonism  as 
this,  between  two  coordinate,  efficient,  and  therefore  real 
principles.  Thus:  "The  impetus  of  life  ...  is  confronted 
with  matter,  that  is  to  say,  with  the  movement  that  is  the  inverse 
of  its  own."''  And:  "Life  as  a  whole  .  .  .  will  appear  as 
a  wave  which  rises,  and  which  is  opposed  by  the  descending 
movement  of  matter.  "-^^  But,  as  with  Plato,  so  with  Bergson, 
dubbing  the  hated  principle  "Not-being"  or  "Negation  of  Positive 
Reality"  hardly  avails  against  the  soundness  of  its  claim  to 
positivity.  And  the  case  is  not  different  if  the  "elan  ritaV*  is  a 
self-limited  absolute  instead  of  an  eternal  dualism:  the  philoso- 
pher's selection  of  one  of  the  two  coefficients  or  poles  of  this  self- 
polarized  absolute,  rather  than  the  other,  to  be  snubbed,  is  arbi- 
trary, instinctive,  personal.  Witli  Plato  it  is  one,  with  Bergson 
the  other;  no  logical  principle  determines  it,  in  either  case. 

On  no  other  point,  I  believe,  is  criticism  of  Bergson  .so  clamorous 
or  so  unanimous  as  on  his  conception  of  matter.  Without  doubt, 
his  conception  of  matter  is  obscure.  Time  and  space  (terms 
equivalent  for  Bergson,  to  life  and  matter)  being  essentially  antag- 
onistic, must  essentially  imply  each  other;  and  if  so,  do  they  not 
stand  in  the  same  rank  as  real  existences?  In  what  sense,  then, 
is  either  real  and  the  other  unreal,  except  by  an  arbitrary  decree? 
The  ontological  obscurity  has  its  corresponding  epistemological 
obscurity  as  to  the  cognitive  status  of  knowledge  of  matter,  which 
is  the  crux  of  Bergson's  philosophy.  Instinct  is  suited  to  life  and 
fluration;  intelligence,  to  matter  and  space.  Science  says  many 
things  about  time,  but  affords  no  acquaintance  with  time  itself. 
The  duration  of  the  unit  of  time  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  the 


33.  Creative  Evolution,  p.  251 

34.  Ibid.  p.  269. 


68  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [138 

meaning  and  value  of  any  scientific  formula.^  For  example,  if 
this  unit  were  made  infinity,  and  the  physical  process  represented 
by  the  formula  were  thus  regarded  as  infinitely  quick,  i.  e.  an 
instantaneous,  timeless  fact,  the  instantaneity  of  the  fact  would 
be  irrelevant  to  any  truth  expressed  by  the  fornuila.  The  only 
truth  the  formula  expresses  is  a  system  of  relations,  which  remains 
the  same  for  any  unit  of  time.  Science  knows  no  past  or  future, 
nothing  but  an  incessantly  renewed  instantaneous  present,  without 
substance.  The  conclusions  of  science  are  given  in  the  premises, 
mathematically;  the  world  of  science  is  a  strict  determinism.  In 
the  real  world  of  consciousness,  on  the  other  hand, — knowledge 
of  which  can  only  be  acquaintance  with  it — the  future  is  essentially 
contingent  and  unforseeable,  for  each  new  phase  is  an  absolute 
creation,  into  which  the  wlioK-  past  is  incorj>orated  without 
determining  it. 

The  active  principle  of  life  Bergson  de.scril>es  by  the  phrase 
tendency  to  create.  Its  movement  is  a  creative  evolution.  Life 
flows,  or,  as  we  have  said,  rolls  on  like  a  snowball,  in  an  unceasing 
production  of  new  forms,  each  of  which  retains,  while  it  modifies 
and  adds  to,  all  its  previous  forms.  lUit  the  figure  of  the  snowball 
soon  fails.  One  of  the  most  significant  facts  of  the  creative  evolu- 
tion of  life  is  the  division  of  its  primitive  path  into  divergent  paths. 
The  primitive  clan  contains  elementary  virtualities  of  tendency 
which  can  abide  together  only  up  to  a  certain  stage  of  their  devel- 
opment. It  is  of  the  nature  of  a  tendency  to  break  up  in 
divergent  elementary  tendencies,  as  a  fountain- jet  sprays  out. 
As  the  primitive  tendency  develops,  elements  contained  in  it 
which  were  mutually  compatible  in  one  and  the  same  primitive 
organism,  being  still  in  an  undeveloped  stage,  become  incompatible 
as  they  grow.  Hence  the  indefinite  liifurcation  of  the  forms  of 
life  into  realms,  phyla,  genera,  species,  individuals.  It  is  a  cardinal 
error,  Bergson  thinks,  to  regard  vegetative,  instinctive  and  intel- 
lectual life,  in  the  Aristotelian  manner,  as  successive  stages  in 
one  and  the  same  line  of  development.  They  represent  three 
radically  difl'erent  lines  of  evolution,  not  three  stages  along  the 
same  line. 

A  tendency  common  to  all  life  is  to  store  the  constantly  diffused 


35.     Cf.  Perry's  comment,  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  p.  235. 


1S9]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  69 

solar  energy  in  reservoirs  where  its  equilibrium  is  unstable.  This 
tendency,  of  alimentation,  is  complementary  to  the  tendency  to 
resolve  equilibrium  of  potential  energj'  by  sudden,  explosive 
release  of  energy-  in  actions.  As  the  primitive  organism  developed 
(undoubtedly  an  ambiguous  form,  partaking  of  the  characters  of 
both  the  animal  and  the  vegetable)  these  two  tendencies  became 
mutually  incompatible  in  one  and  the  same  form  of  life.  Those 
forms  which  became  vegetables  owe  their  diflFerentiation  from 
ancestral  forms  to  a  preponderant  leaning  toward  the  manufacture 
of  the  explosive,  as  the  animal  owes  its  animality  to  a  leaning 
toward  the  release  of  energy  in  sudden  and  intermittent  actions. 

The  vegetable,  drawing  its  nourishment  wherever  it  may  find 
it,  from  the  ground  and  from  the  air,  has  no  need  of  locomotion. 
The  animal,  dependent  on  the  vegetable  or  on  other  animals  for 
food,  nuist  go  where  it  may  be  found.  The  animal  must  move. 
Now,  consciousness  emerges  port  passu  with  the  ability  to  act, 
and  torpor  is  characteristic  of  fixity.  The  humblest  organism  is 
conscious  to  the  extent  to  which  it  can  act  freely.  Actions  may 
be  effective  either  by  virtue  of  an  excellence  in  the  use  of  instru- 
ments of  action  or  by  virtue  of  an  excellence  in  adai)ting  the 
instrument  to  the  need.  Action  may  thus  assume  either  of  two 
verj'  different  characters,  the  one  instinctive,  self-adaptive  reac- 
tion, the  other  intelligent  manufacture.  The  two  tendencies  have 
bifurcated  within  the  animal  realm.  One  path  reaches  its  present 
culmination  in  certain  hymenoptera  {e.  g.  ants,  bees,  wasps),  the 
other  in  man. 

Thus  the  development  of  instinct  in  man  has  become  subor- 
dinate; human  consciousness  is  dominated  by  intelligence.  Hence 
the  universality  of  the  vice  of  intellectuaHsm  in  philosophy.  Man, 
because  he  is  dominated  by  intelligence,  supposes  intelligence  to 
be  coextensive  with  consciousness,  whereas  it  is  only  one  of  the 
elementary  tendencies  which  consciousness  comprises,  and  the 
one  which  is  impotent  to  know  the  flow  of  reality.  Spencer's 
evolutionism  affords  no  acquaintance  with  the  reality  of  life. 
His  so-called  evolution  starts  with  the  already  evolved.  Hence 
all  it  reaches  is  the  made,  the  once-for-all,  the  timeless.  It  is 
merely  a  biological  theory,  and  no  advance  over  positive  science. 
It  is  not  a  philosophy. 

Having  shown  the  origin  of  intelligence  in  the  more  extensive 
principle  of  life,  and  limited  its  sphere  of  operation  to  inert  matter. 


70  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [IJ^O 

the  author  turns  to  the  nature  of  instinct.  The  greater  part  of 
the  psychic  life  of  Hving  beings  that  are  characteristically  in- 
stinctive Bergson  believes  to  be  states  which  he  describes  as 
knowledge  in  which  there  is  no  representation.^®  "  Representation 
is  stopped  up  by  action.""  A  purely  instinctive  action  would  be 
indistinguishable  from  a  mere  vital  process.  When  the  chick, 
for  example,  breaks  the  shell,  it  seems  merely  to  keep  up  the  motion 
that  has  carried  it  through  the  embryonic  life.  But  neither 
instinct  nor  intelligence  is  ever  pure,  and  we  have  in  ourselves  a 
vague  experience  of  what  nnist  happen  in  the  consciousness  of  an 
animal  acting  by  instinct.  We  have  this  experience  in  phenomena 
of  feeling,  in  unreflecting  sympathies  and  antii)athies.  "Instinct 
is  sympathy.  If  this  sympathy  could  extend  its  ol)ject  and  also 
reflect  upon  itself,  it  would  give  us  the  key  to  vital  operations. 
.  .  .  Intuition,  to  wit,  instinct  that  has  l>ecome  disinterested, 
self-conscious,  capal>le  of  reflecting  upon  its  object  and  of  enlarging 
it  indefinitely,  leads  us  into  the  very  inwardness  of  life  ...  It 
is  true  that  this  {esthetic  intuition  .      attains  only  the 

individual,  l)ut  we  can  conceive  an  in(iuiry  turne<l  in  the  same 
direction  as  art,  which  would  take  life  in  general  for  its  object.  "'* 

In  Matter  and  Memory,  mind  is  repre.sented  a.s  varying,  in  its 
states,  between  two  limits,  "pure  perception,"  which  is  just  action, 
and  "dreaming."  The  limit  of  action  Is  where  the  role  of  mind 
ceases,  the  vanishing-point  of  knowledge,.  But  at  the  other  limit, 
dreaming,  mind  is  in  full  swing,  having  freed  it.self,  by  an  inner 
tension,  from  the  obstructive  influence  of  Ixuly.  Far  fn)m  van- 
ishing at  this  limit,  as  at  the  <»11ut,  knowlod^'c  is  here  at  its  apogee. 
It  is  here  "pure." 

It  is  important  for  Bergson  to  recogni/e  an  organic  connection 
(obstructive  to  mintl,  as  he  i'latonically  conceives)  between  mind 
and  body,  in  order  that  he  may  establish  the  possibility  of  the  state 
of  "pure  perception,"  in  which  mind  activity  coincides  with 
bodily  activity  by  a  yielding,  relaxed  concurrence  with  the  latter's 
mfluence.  Mind  is  here  passive;  its  role  in  the  life  of  the  organism 
ceases  in  this  state.  But  it  is  eciually  important,  for  the  onto- 
logical  independence  of  mind,  that  at  the  "ilreaming"  |)ole  the 


36.  Creative  Evolution,^.  \~^. 

37.  Ihid.,  p.  144. 

38.  Ibiif..  pp.  I7fi.  177. 


14.1]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosoplnj  71 

tension  which  is  the  very  constitution  of  its  knowing  should  free 
mind  from  bodily  influence.  This  tension,  at  its  ideal  limit,  must 
so  disconnect  the  mind  from  the  body  that  the  former  becomes 
impotent,  .as  Bergson  says,  for  any  efficiency  in  the  physical  world. 
It  seems  to  be,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  disembodied  state. 
Knowledge  having  then  no  j)ossible  end  in  action  is  clearly  its  own 
end.  Intellection  is  a  utility,  operating  in  the  world  of  matter; 
knowledge  is  absolute,  self-centered  identity  of  subject  and  object. 
Such,  I  suppose,  is  God's  "thought  of  thought"  in  Aristotle's 
conception. 

This  fluctuation  of  the  relation  between  mind  and  body,  from  a 
connection  which  is  vital  to  absolute  di.sconnection,  is  a  reappear- 
ance of  the  ambiguity  discussed  on  pages  66-7.  At  one  moment  the 
world  seems  a  Platonic  dualism;  in  the  next,  a  self-limited  or 
polarized  absolutism,  like  Fichte's  or  Hegel's.  Whatever  the 
"ideal  limit'  of  mind's  cognitive  "tension"  may  be  conceived  to 
be,  there  ought  to  be  no  question  of  more  and  less,  in  the  matter 
of  disconnectedness,  strictly  speaking.  We  do  not  understand 
movement  from  connection  to  disconnection,  through  intermediate 
stages,  as  mind  is  here  represented  to  move,  in  its  states  of 
knowledge.  First  mind  nnist  be  like  a  certain  part  of  matter,  so 
that  it  can  rebound  by  its  "tension"  from  a  certain  other  part; 
and  then,  as  soon  as  it  has  rebounded,  what  would  be  true  of  the 
thing  that  could  do  this  must  suddenly  become  untrue  of  it,  pre- 
sumably because  of  the  rebound,  no  other  reason  being  assignable 
to  account  for  the  ensuing  disconnection  with  matter.  One  bit  of 
matter  can  rebound  from  another,  but  it  is  then  as  much  connected 
with  matter  as  before.  We  do  not  understand  how  mind,  when  it 
has  thus  rebounded  from  one  particular  material  attachment 
thereby  becomes  materially  unattached. 

This  is  nevertheless  a  suggestive  scheme  of  relation.  It  seems 
to  me  to  be  marred  with  one  radical  fault :  these  limits  of  knowledge 
are  wrongly  related.  Their  negation  of  each  other  should  be  the 
opposition  of  antipodes,  not  of  contradictories.  The  difference  is 
the  radical  difference  between  implication  and  exclusion.  They 
do  not  exclude  each  other,  but  imply  each  other.  Each  vanishes 
without  the  other. 

In  activity,  there  is  externalized  motion  on  one  hand  and 
resistance,  or  virtual  reaction,  on  the  other.  Action  and  reaction 
are  cases  of  polarity ;  they  are  necessary  to  each  other  to  give  each 


72  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [142 

other  form.  In  the  cognitive  subject,  reaction  that  were 
purely  virtual,  without  externalizing  implication,  would  be  inde- 
terminate dreaming;  motion  that  were  purely  externalized, 
without  implication  of  inner  virtuality,  would  be  indeterminate 
activity.  Now,  anything  that  is  indeterminate  or  formless  simply 
is  not,  if  being  has  any  significance  whatever;  for  formless  sig- 
nificance is  a  contradiction;  certainly  the  significance  of  anything 
would  constitute  a  formal  aspect  of  it.  "  Pure  "  matter  or  quantity 
is  pure  nothing,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  quantity  of  nothing.  These 
"pure"  limits  thus  snuflf  themselves  out.  And  variation  between 
them  is  not  a  progression  from  not-])eing  to  being  or  rice  rersa,  not 
a  strengthening  or  weakening  of  the  variable  function's  essence. 
Such  a  notion  depends  on  the  absurdity  of  a  not-being  that  can  do 
things  to  being,  with  fluctuating  prei)otency  in  the  struggle! 
Strengthening  and  weakening — degree  in  any  guise — has  no  appli- 
cation to  essence.  In  any  phase,  that  is.  knowledge  is  itself  and 
nothing  else;  it  cannot  be  more  or  less  itself. 

That  which  varies  concomitantly  with  the  variations  in  complex- 
ion of  consciousness,  is  the  dynamic  relation  V)etween  sul)ject  and 
object.  It  may  be  expressed  as  variation  of  ratio  between  virtual 
and  real  action.  At  each  pole  activity  vanishes,  and  con.sciousness 
w^ith  it.  At  one  pole,  where  the  ratio  is  zero,  it  vanishes  in  the 
direction  of  "real"  or  externalized  action,  which  means  that  the 
subject  meets  no  opposing  negativity,  and  so  no  object ;  the  relation 
of  activity  is  extinguished  through  lack  of  one  of  its  terms.  At  the 
other  pole,  where  the  ratio  is  infinity,  action  vanishes  in  the  direc- 
tion of  "virtuahty."  And  this  means  that  in  the  subject  there  is 
no  positivity,  no  subjectivity,  to  ()i)p<)se  to  universal  negativity  or 
objectivity.  The  result  is  the  .same  extinction  of  the  relation 
through  lack  of  a  term.  A  subject  term  is  lacking  in  one  ca.se, 
an  object  in  the  other. 

Knowledge,  for  Berg.son,  corresponds  only  to  the  ratio  infinity, 
of  virtual  to  real  action;  all  other  ratios  between  them  are  les.s 
than  knowledge.  To  this  I  object  that  infinite  virtuality  is  inde- 
terminate virtuahty,  which  is  a  naught  reached  in  the  opix^site 
way  from  that  naught  which  is  infinite  andindeterniinateactuality. 
Indeterminate  action  is  nothing,  and  .so  is  indeterminate  knowl- 
edge. Identification  of  knowledge  with  any  specific  value  of  the 
ratio  of  virtual  to  real  action  is  not  determined  by  any  logical 
principle.     ^Mien   a    function   varies   l)etween   a   positive   and   a 


143]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  73 

negative  pole,  neither  pole  is  an  apogee  where  the  function  is 
most  itself.  On  the  contrary,  as  in  the  variation  of  an  including 
angle,  each  pole  is  a  limiting  position  in  which  the  essential 
nature  of  the  variable  is  extinguished.  Nor  is  it  most  itself  mid- 
way between  the  i)oles,  nor  at  any  other  privileged  position,  for 
it  is  absolutely  and  fully  itself,  and  nothing  else,  in  every  phase. 
The  genuineness  of  a  state  of  awareness  would  then  depend  also 
on  the  genuineness  of  the  reciprocity  between  the  terms  of  this 
dynamic  ratio.  Where  they  are  not  distinct,  where  subject  and 
object  are  identical,  awareness  vanishes  through  lack  of  a  quan- 
titative coefficient,  as  it  vanishes  at  each  pole  through  lack  of 
a  qualitative  coefficient.  In  other  words,  knowledge  of  a  thing 
by  itself,  like  action  of  a  thing  on  itself,  is  a  cancelation  of  terms 
of  opposite  sign,  a  contradiction,  and  the  subject  and  object,  ivhether 
of  action  or  of  corisciousness,  are  essentially  external  to  each  other. 

Bergson  is  treating  consciousness  as  such  as  if  it  could  be  more 
or  less  conscious,  as,  indeed,  a  conscious  subject  may  be.  That  is, 
he  is  treating  consciousness  as  if  it  could  be  of  a  nature  more  or 
less  aware  or  cognitive;  he  is  treating  variations  of  phase  as  if  they 
were  augmentations  and  diminutions  of  essence;  he  is  treating 
quality  (piaiititatively,  an  error  which  would  not  have  been  possible 
if  he  had  adhered  to  the  j)urely  conceptual  distinction  between 
quality  and  (juantity.  And  he  is  treating  the  variations  of  cog- 
nitive complexion  or  phase  as  if  they  depended  on  variations  in  a 
certain  relation  (the  mutual  externality  of  subject  and  object) 
which  is  invariable  and  absolute — incapable,  that  is,  of  degree. 

"This  book,"  says  the  first  sentence  of  Matter  and  Memory, 
"aflBrms  the  reality  of  spirit  and  the  reality  of  matter."  Lower 
in  the  same  page,  however,  it  is  explained  that  "Matter,  in  our 
view,  is  an  aggregate  of  '  images. '  And  by  'image'  we  mean  a  certain 
existence  which  is  more  than  that  which  the  idealist  calls  a  repre- 
sentation, but  less  than  that  which  the  realist  calls  a  thing, — an 
existence  placed  half-way  between  the  'thing'  and  the  'represen- 
tation. '  .  .  .  the  ol)ject  exists  in  itself,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  object  is,  in  itself,  pictorial,  as  we  perceive  it;  image  it  is,  but 
a  self-existing  image  (pp.  vii,  viii). 

"  ...  memory  ...  is  just  the  intersection  of  mind 
and  matter  .  .  .  the  psychical  state  seems  to  us  to  be  .  .  . 
immenselv  wider  than  the  cerebral  state     .     .     .     our  cerebral 


7^  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [144 

state  contains  more  or  less  of  our  mental  state  in  the  measure  that 
we  reel  off  our  psychic  life  into  action  or  wind  it  up  into  pure 
knowledge  .  .  .  our  psychic  life  nijiy  be  lived  at  different 
heights,  now  nearer  to  action,  now  further  removed  from  it" 
(pp.  xii,  xiii,  xiv). 

The  "intersection  of  mind  and  matter"  suggests  a  profound 
dualism,  and  this  Bergson  acknowledges  to  be  essential  to  his 
theory.  It  is  true  that  no  opportunity  is  lost,  to  discount  the 
reality  of  matter;  but  the  relations  which  it  sus tarns  to  mind  are 
such  as  can  exist  only  between  terms  whose  reality  is  coordinate. 
Perception  is  just  that  biological  reactive  function  of  material 
organism  engaged  with  material  stimulus,  which  every  psycholog- 
ical text-book  proclaims  it  to  be.  But  the  actual  conscious  state 
always  has  memory  in  it,  as  well  as  perception; or  rather, the  state 
as  conscious  is  nothing  but  memory;  perception  itself,  "pure" 
perception,  is  action  pure  and  simple,  and  not  cognitive  at  all. 

This  is  an  abuse  of  the  word  "i)ercei)tion,"  but  the  epistemologj' 
can  show  a  good  deal  of  reason.  After  all,  our  j>crceptions  (as  we 
call  the  states  of  mind  in  which  we  are  involved  with  a  material 
stimulus)  mean  something,  necessarily.  They  mean  i^o  met  lung,  I 
insist,  the  strangest  of  them.  We  sometimes  sjjcak  otherwise, 
saying  that  an  object  of  perception  means  nothing  to  us.  But,  I 
submit,  this  is  only  a  manner  of  .si)eaking.  A  state  that  meant 
nothing,  absolutely,  were  genuinely  hUink,  enii)ty,  contentless;  and 
there  is  no  difference,  I  take  it,  between  a  state  without  content  and 
a  state  that  is  unconscious.  Well,  then,  meaning  .something,  as  a 
conscious  state  must,  what  does  it  mean?  Bergson,  I  am  sure,  is 
right  in  holding  that  to  mean  is  to  recognize,  to  recall,  to  remember. 
This  makes  of  every  concrete  perceptive  state,  so-called,  a  rudi- 
mentary deduction,  a  genuine  syllogism,  a  work  of  intellect.  The 
major  premise  is  a  memory;  the  minor  is  an  immediate  reactive, 
sensori-motor  datum;  the  conclusion  is  the  subsumption  of  the 
present  datum  under  the  memory.  Thus:  The  experience  to 
which  I  attach  the  name  "orange"  has  such  and  such  characters 
(remembered  major  premi.se);  the  present  reactive  state  has  these 
characters  (perceptive  datum,  minor  premise);  therefore  this  state 
is  a  case  of  the  orange  experience.  The  only  difficulty  is  the  nature 
of  the  process  of  subsumption  of  the  present  datum  with  the 
memory.  The  present  datum  in  its  purity  as  present  is  a  reaction 
merely,  an  event  in  the  physical  world.     Its  nature  owns  nothing 


IJ^]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson*s  Philosophy  75 

psychical.  What  commerce,  then,  can  it  have  with  mind?  To 
call  its  commerce  with  mind  "subsumption"  is  to  give  a  label  to 
a  problem.  To  call  memory  the  "intersection"  of  the  physical 
world  with  mind  seems  another  label,  of  a  metaphorical  sort,  for 
the  same  problem. 

But,  for  the  present,  let  us  hear  the  doctrine.  To  my  thinking, 
it  is  Bergson's  best  work,  and  full  of  illuminating  suggestion.  To 
the  radical  dualist,  it  should  be  completely  satisfactory.  As  an 
adherent  of  a  certain  double-aspect  conception  of  the  body-mind 
relation,  I  shall  eventually  propose  a  correction  and  completion, 
very  radical,  certainly,  but  all  that  is  necessary  to  make  Bergson's 
treatment  of  this  problem  of  the  highest  interest  and  value  to 
myself. 

The  body,  then,  in  Bergson's  theory,  yes,  the  brain  itself,  is  no 
producer,  repository  nor  reproducer  of  any  element  of  conscious- 
ness. The  body  is  a  center  of  reaction,  and  nothing  else.  "The  size, 
shape,  ev'en  the  color,  of  external  objects  is  modified  according  as 
my  body  approaches  or  recedes  from  them,  .  .  .  the  strength 
of  an  odour,  the  intensity  of  a  sound,  increases  or  diminishes  with 
distance;  finally,  .  .  .  this  very  distance  represents,  above 
all,  the  measure  in  which  surrounding  bodies  are  insured,  in  some 
sort,  against  the  immediate  action  of  my  body.  In  the  degree 
that  my  horizon  widens,  the  images  which  surround  me  seem  to  be 
painted  upon  a  more  uniform  background  and  become  to  me  more 
indifferent.  The  more  I  narrow  this  horizon,  the  more  the  objects 
which  it  circumscribes  space  themselves  out  distinctly  according 
to  the  greater  or  less  ease  with  which  my  body  can  touch  and  move 
them.  They  send  back,  then,  to  my  body,  as  would  a  mirror,  its 
eventual  influence;  they  take  rank  in  an  order  corresponding  to  the 
growing  or  decreasing  powers  of  my  body.  The  objects  which  sur- 
round my  body  reflect  its  possible  action  upon  them."^^  Cut  a 
sensorj'  nerve,  and  the  reactive  process  is  destroyed,  and  with  it, 
perception.  "Change  the  objects,  or  modify  their  relation  to  my 
body,  and  everything  is  changed  in  the  interior  movements  of  my 
perceptive  centres.  But  everj'thing  is  also  changed  in  'my  per- 
ception.' My  perception  is,  then,  a  function  of  these  molecular 
movements;  it  depends  upon  them."*°  "What  then  are  these 
movements?     .     .     .     they  are,  within  my  body,  the  movements 


39.  Matter  and  Memory,  pp.  6.  7. 

40.  Ibid.,  p.  8. 


76  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studi£s  [U6 

intended  to  prepare,  while  beginning  it,  the  reaction  of  my  body  to 
the  action  of  external  objects  .  .  .  they  foreshadow  at  each 
successive  moment  its  virtual  acts.  "^'  It  may  seem  that  my  reac- 
tion to  a  body  is  the  same  whether  I  perceive  it  visually  or  tactually 
or  otherwise.  But  movements  externally  identical  may  difTor 
internally;  there  is  a  different  organization  of  the  same  gross 
function  with  different  microscopic  functions.  The  meaning  has 
ultimately  an  important  sameness,  since  meaning  is  a  function  of 
biological  adjustment.  But  different  inner  f)rganizations  are  still 
the  explanation  of  different  ways  of  perceiving  what  is,  in  all 
biologically  important  respects,  the  same  object. 

Serious  fault  has  been  found^^  with  Bergson's  attemi)t  to  estab- 
lish, by  scientific  research  in  the  subject  of  aphasia,  the  ontological 
independence  of  spirit,  the  .seat  of  memory,  from  body.  But  on 
other  grounds  than  such  scientific  investigation  the  issue  of  thix 
attempt  appears  to  me  at  best  a  futile  achievement;  for  the  result 
is  in  any  case  the  reinstatement,  untouched,  of  that  problem  of  all 
radical  dualism,  a  problem  which  Bergson  solves  only  by  metaph«)r 
whose  brilliance  may  be  luniiuous  itself,  but  has  no  illumination 
for  the  problem,  which  is  how  reactive  states  are  also  con.scious. 

There  is  a  theory  which  relates  consciousness  and  matter  to  each 
each  other  as  the  opposite  sides  of  a  surface  in  relief.  The  objec- 
tion to  this  "double  aspect"  theory  that  has  weighed  most,  in 
criticism,  is  that  the  ground  of  the  paralleli->m  between  coTivexity 
and  concavity — to  wit,  a  logical  imj>lication  of  each  other — is  obvi- 
ously absent  in  the  parallelism  of  con.sciousness  and  matter. 
Whatever  parallelism  exj)erience  actually  finds  between  them  is  not 
deducible  from  either  concept:  there  is  nothing  in  the  definition  of 
the  sensation  blue  to  suggest  an  afferent  nervous  current;  nothing 
in  the  latter  to  suggest  a  sensation.  They  are  incommensurate. 
But  when  you  conceive  convexity,  in  that  fact  you  conceive  con- 
cavity also,  and  vice  versa.  They  are  related  as  plus  and  minus. 
The  objection  appeals  to  analysis  of  the  definition  of  consciousness 
or  of  matter,  or  challenges  the  advocate  of  the  theon.'  to  study  his 
sensation  or  his  neural  process  and  see  if  there  be  in  either  of  them 
anything  of  the  other. 

A  difficulty  which  immediately  arises  when  this  challenge  is 


41.     Ibid.,  p.  10. 

*?:„   .?"^''  ^-  ^-  Elliots  .Modern  Science  and  the  Illusions  of  Professor  Bergson. 
pp.  98  ff.  '         ^ 


1J^7]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  77 

accepted  has  been  understood  to  be  decisive  against  the  theory.  It 
is  this:  Any  definition  of  consciousness  which  the  advocate  of  the 
theory  may  propose  as  the  concept  to  be  analyzed  must,  in  order  to 
fulfil  the  first  requirement  of  logical  definition,  be  in  terms  of  that 
which  is  not  consciousness.  And  this  seems  to  the  critic  to  beg  the 
question.  If  you  define  consciousness  so,  he  objects,  you  make  its 
definition  imply  matter;  but  there  is  then  nothing  of  consciousness 
in  it;  what  you  have  got  is  only  matter.  That  is  to  assume  an 
equation  between  them.  You  state  the  value  of  .r  in  terms  of  y, 
but  then  you  haven't  got  x,  but  only  y.  It  is  other\vise  with  terms 
that  really  have  the  correlation  you  claim  for  consciousness  and 
matter.  Thus  you  can  equate  convexity  with  concavity  in  terms 
of  either  alone,  as  m  =  —  ( — /«).  In  this  there  is  no  assumption. 
But  what  you  say  of  x  is  that  it  equals  ay,  which  is  something  dis- 
tinguishable from  .r  and  whose  equality  to  x  is  just  the  problem. 

But  if  it  be  allowed  that  the  disparity  between  consciousness  and 
matter  must  be  either  a  distinction  between  two  kinds  of  reality,  or 
else  the  distinction  between  being  and  not-being,  the  predicament 
just  described  is  worse  for  the  critic  of  the  "dou})le  aspect"  theory 
than  for  its  advocate.  If  the  distinction  is  that  of  being  and  not- 
being,  whichever  is  not-being  has  an  internal  constitution  and 
structure  by  virtue  of  which  parts  and  relations  are  recognized 
within  it:  matter  has  physical  laws  and  the  interaction  of  bodies; 
consciousness  has  interrelated  states.  Not-being,  so  interpreted, 
is  hardly  distinguished  from  being.  And  if  the  distinction  is  within 
being,  and  exhausts  it,  either  the  connotation  of  consciousness  and 
that  of  matter  are  referable  to  each  other — expressible  in  terms  of 
each  other — or  el.se  the  distinction  is  only  denotative,  and  they  are 
not  distinguished  as  different;  for  difference  is  a  discursive  relation 
between  differents :  rfjjfering  from  each  other  is  a  case  of  referring 
to  each  other. 

Exces.sive  emphasis  on  the  " ultimateness "  and  "absoluteness" 
of  the  difference  between  these  two  concepts  is  just  the  inductive 
cue  that  results  in  the  "  double  aspect "  theory.  No  one  can  regard 
consciousness  as  not  different  from  matter — least  of  all  our  critic, 
who  finds  them  incommensurable.  Nay,  among  real  things  that 
are  other  than  each  other,  experience  gives  us  no  fellow  to  such 
difference;  for  difference  so  utter,  they  that  difiPer  should  coincide. 
And  so,  in  the  fact  of  aspect,  we  have,  indeed,  in  a  thousand  forms, 
disparity  that  matches  the  difference  between  the  concepts  now 


7^  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [1^8 

before  us:  e.  g.,  right,  left;  up,  down;  plus,  minus;  convex,  concave. 

We  confess  three  obvious  differences  between  the  two  equations 
which  we  have  taken  to  represent  our  critic's  conception  of  the 
relation  of  convexity  to  concavity  and  the  relation  of  consciousness 
to  matter.  In  equation  (1),  which  is  m  =  —  (— m).  representing 
the  former  relation,  the  same  symbol  m  stands  on  both  sides;  in 
equation  (2)  the  symbols  are  different,  x  on  one  side,  y  on  the  other. 
In  (1)  the  coefficient  also  is  the  same  on  both  sides,  namely  unity; 
in  (2)  the  coefficients  are  different,  unity  on  one  side,  a  on  the  other. 
And  in  (1)  the  signs  are  opposite  on  the  two  sides,  while  in  (2)  the 
sign  is  the  same  on  both  sides. 

What  do  these  differences  mean?  To  begin  with,  is  (1)  mo- 
nomial and  (2)  binomial.?  No;  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  there  is  only 
one  symbol  in  (1),  this  equation  is  binomial  in  precisely  the  same 
sense  as  (2)  is  binomial;  for  it  means  that  a  ccrtiiin  attitude  toward 
m,  symbolized  by  the  minus  sign,  transforms  m  into  something  dis- 
tinguishable from  m.  If  efjuation  (1)  expressed  an  identity,  it 
would  not  represent  the  relation  of  convexity  to  concavity,  which 
are  not  identical  but  distinguishable.  IJut  what  is  thus  expressed 
in  (1)  by  difference  of  sign  is  expressed  in  (2)  by  difference  of  co- 
efficient; for  (2)  means  that  a  certain  attitude  toward  the  entity 
symbolized  by  x  (an  attitude  symbolized  by  the  phrase  "divide  by 
a")  transforms  x  into  y.  In  short,  the  connotation  differs,  on  the 
two  sides,  iti  both  equations  alike,  liut  on  the  other  hand,  the  deno- 
tation is  the  same  on  both  sides  in  each  e(iuation,  for  such  is  the 
nature  of  all  equations,  whether  binomial  or  any  other  kind.  Thus 
we  have  identity  of  denotation  with  difference  of  connotation  in 
each  of  these  equations,  and  they  are  so  far  homogeneous  with  each 
other.  Now  connotation  is  aspect,  which  is  determined  by  sub- 
jective attitude;  and  attitudes  are  interrelated  in  determinate  and 
accurately  expressible  ways  ;as,  for  instance,  by  autagonismor  mutual 
exclusion,  or  by  any  of  an  indefinite  number  of  forms  of  implication. 
The  difference  of  attitude  called  antipodal  oppositeness,  or  polarity, 
is  the  specific  difference  expressed  in  equation  (1);  whereas  the 
coefficient  a,  in  (2),  expresses  mere  difference  of  attitude,  difference 
in  general,  including,  therefore,  that  specific  difference  which  is 
expressed  by  opposition  of  sign.  Thus  ecjuation  (1)  is  a  case  of 
equation  (2). 

To  sum  up:  The  objection,  stated  in  these  algebraic  symbols,  was 
this:  m  implies  — m;  x  does  not  imply  y.    Express  the  fact  of  relief 


149]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  7d 

in  terms  of  m  and  you  have  the  correlative  fact  in  — m  implied  in 
the  very  definition  of  m ;  while  if  you  express  x  in  terms  of  y»  you 
have  y  values,  and  nothing  but  y.  In  short,  x  and  y  exclude  each 
other;  m  and  — m  imply  each  other.  Our  answer  is  that  x  implies 
y  just  as  m  implies  — m;  for  ay  is  an  aspect  of  the  same  denotation 
as  x;  and,  since  the  specificity  of  every  aspect  of  a  given  denotation 
is  determinable  or  definable  by  relation  to  all  other  aspects  of  the 
same  denotation,  any  one  of  such  aspects,  as  x,  implies,  in  its  defini- 
tion, every  other,  and  so  y,  instead  of  excluding  y. 

Turning  from  such  abstract  considerations  to  empirical  study  of 
the  sensation,  the  same  sort  of  difficulty  reappears.  We  think  we 
find  a  dynamic  relationship  of  organic  to  extra-organic  processes; 
this  relationship  presents  a  material  aspect,  which  we  call  neural 
activity,  and  a  formal  aspect,  which  we  call  blue,  for  instance.  But 
the  critic  objects  that  all  this  is  much  more  than  sensation,  and  that 
we  have  read  our  hypothesis  into  our  data.  We  must  keep  to  the 
pure  sensation;  in  that,  there  is  no  neural  process.  So,  even  as, 
before,  all  our  attempts  to  propose  a  definition  of  consciousness  for 
analysis  were  ruled  out  as  ))egging  the  question,  now  every  sample 
of  the  experience  to  be  observed  is  rejected  as  impure.  There  is  no 
sensation  that  is  pure  in  such  a  sense  as  our  critic  means,  for  he 
means  subjectivity  that  implies  no  objectivity.  If  this  is  more 
than  a  word,  it  is  a  self-contradiction,  since  subjectivity  is  subjec- 
tivity only  in  the  fact  of  correlation  with  objectivity.  Indeed,  if 
our  critic  were  to  observe  convexity  as  he  proposes  that  we  observe 
sensation,  he  would  find  no  implication  of  concavity  in  it;  nor 
would  he  find  it  convex.  His  observation  would  be  the  convexity; 
the  two  would  coincide,  and  so  would  not  be  two.  Convexity  in  its 
essence,as  convex,would  therein  no  longer  be  the  object  of  the  obser- 
vation. You  have  to  get  outside  of  your  convexity  to  observe  it 
and  its  implication  of  concavity;  just  so,  you  have  to  get  outside  of 
your  sensation  to  know  it;  in  it,  you  know  only  the  object  of  it. 
When  convexity  is  said  to  imply  concavity,  convexity  is  just  there- 
in not  "pure, "as  the  sensation  is  supposed  to  be.  "Pure"  con- 
vexity, analogous  to  "pure"  sensation  or  subjectivity,  would  be 
convexity  without  implication  of  concavity.  That  would  be  zero 
convexity,  so  to  speak — a  self-contradiction.  Just  so,  the  "pure" 
sensation,  without  implication  of  objectivity,  is  a  fact  of  conscious- 
ness without  the  essence  of  consciousness,  which  is  dynamic  related- 


80  University  of  Kansas  nu7na7jistic  Studies  [150 

ness  to  an  object.  "Pure"  consciousness  is  consciousness  of 
nothing,  or  no  consciousness. 

If  our  critic  have  his  way,  we  have  nothing  left  us  to  discuss. 
Let  us  invite  his  attention  to  a  discussable  phenomenon  of  our  owii 
designating,  and  definable  in  some  such  way  as  this:  the  simultane- 
ous belonging  of  an  experience  to  an  organism  and  to  another  ma- 
terial fact,  say  the  sky.  The  two  belongings  are  distinguished  by  a 
sui  generis  difference  of  direction  or  relational  "sense,"  which  un- 
ambiguously determines  the  organism  to  be  the  subject  of  the 
belonging,  the  sky  the  object.  We  have  at  least  as  good  a  right  to 
call  this  phenomenon  by  the  name  of  consciousness,  or  sensation, 
as  our  critic  has  to  name  that  a  sensation  which  he  so  defines  that 
its  definition  is  contradicted  by  the  naming. 

Now,  experience  is  essentially  dynamic,  and,  for  an  organism,  to 
be  active  is  to  be  functionally  ordinatcd  or  focalized.  For  exam{)le, 
the  eye  and  other  parts  may  be  subservient,  in  dilferent  ways  and 
degrees,  to  the  hand.  Then  the  organism  is  focalized  into  an  organ 
of  touch,  of  striking,  or  whatever  it  may  be.  Kver\'  other  function 
contributes  as  accessory  to  this  primary  function,  in  the  organism's 
present  phase. 

We  have  called  consciousness  the  formal  as|)ect  of  activity,  and 
we  mean  by  "form"  applied  to  activity  what  we  mean  elsewhere, 
determinateness  or  definablencss.  Here,  in  particular,  it  is  that 
character  which  depends  on  resistance  or  reactivity.  Activity  with- 
out resistance  would  be  without  determination;  its  character  or 
content  would  have  vanished;  it  would  l>e  activity  upon  nothing, 
which,  like  consciousness  of  nothing,  is  nothing.  So  the  resistance 
that  factors  in  activity  is  not  extraneous  to  the  essence  of  activity, 
and  consciousness  and  material  processes  imply  each  other  not 
only  with  the  same  logical  necessity  but  with  the  .same  polar 
oppositeness  of  mutual  relation,  as  the  asj)ects  of  relief. 

Consciousness  is  thus  the  inversion  or  reciprocal  asjHJct  of  organic 
activity,  virtual,  in  distinction  from  externalized  or  real,  activity. 
Wliere  attention  is  focalized,  action  is  most  resisted.  As  action 
approaches  free  vent,  consciousness  of  the  object  of  this  free 
activity  becomes  more  and  more  evanescent.  At  the  limit  where 
action  is  unresisted,  it  and  consciousness  go  out,  vanish  together,  in 
inverse  "sense"  or  directions.  Where  action  approaches  "pure" 
(i.  e.,  unresisted)  activity,  pure  positivity,  pure  subjectivity,  con- 
sciousness approaches  "pure"  (?.  e.,  unreacting)  passivity,  pure 


151]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  81 

negativity,  pure  objectivity.  And  such  "pure"  action  and  con- 
sciousness are  pure  nothing,  action  on  nothing,  sensation  of 
nothing.  The  vanishing  of  the  two  relations  together  is,  in  each 
case,  for  lack  of  one  of  its  terms  inverse  to  the  term  lacking  in  the 
other  case. 

This  mutual  symmetry  between  action  and  consciousness  is  an 
implicate  of  their  identity  of  denotation  and  mutual  inversion  of 
aspect;  and  any  study  of  the  fluctuations  and  transitions  of  con- 
sciousness, with  its  modulations  of  attention  and  inhibition,  is 
accordingly  a  study  in  inverse,  a  perfect  logical  function,  of  corres- 
ponding modifications  of  organic  activity;  for  in  the  play  of  the 
organic  functions  we  shall  find  incessant  modulations  between 
their  focalization  and  their  dispersion,  incessant  shifting  of  their 
mutual  rank  and  of  the  position  of  primacy  among  them,  to  cor- 
respond with  the  changes  between  margin  and  focus  that  are 
always  going  on  among  the  elements  of  consciousness. 

The  organism  is  structurally  and  functionally  centralized  in  a 
sensori-motor  system,  where  the  afferent  activity  is  opposed  by  the 
efferent,  in  a  common  focus,  or  in  coincident  foci,  in  which  action 
and  reaction  give  form  to  each  other.  Here  organic  reaction  has  its 
inception  in  a  preformation,  schema  or  design,  as  Bergson  says,  of 
the  developed  activity.  An  intricate  manifold  of  functions  are 
organized:  interest  determines  the  ascendency  or  primacy  of  a  cer- 
tain function,  while  others  are  subservient,  being  inhibited  or  rein- 
forced in  varying  degrees.  The  whole  complex  process  has  this 
character  of  focal,  unifying  organization,  a  unity  expressed  in 
opposite  aspects  as  the  simple  form  of  activity,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  as  the  simple  object  of  perceptive  consciousness  on  the  other. 


Chaptp:r  III 

DOCTRINE   OF    FREEDOM 

The  fallacy  of  conceptualisin,  wiiich,  as  Bergson  conceives  it,  is 
to  substitute  space  for  time  as  the  form  of  mental  existence,  has 
been  discussed  in  the  first  chapter  of  Time  and  Free  Will  in  the 
aspect  of  applying  intensive  magnitude,  and  in  the  second  chapter, 
numerical  multiplicity,  to  psychic  facts.  It  is  the  same  fallacy 
which  is  discussed  in  the  third  chapter,  in  the  aspect  of  applying  to 
them  the  conception  of  determinate,  causal  organization.  The 
outcome  of  the  book  is  thus  that  the  problem  of  freedom  is  just  the 
problem  of  conceptualism,  a  problem  of  philosophic  method. 
This  book.  Time  and  Free  Will,  is  a  manual  of  instruction  for  know- 
ing the  reality  of  mental  existence;  and  its  object  is  the  practical 
object  of  indicating  the  attitude  necessary  for  that  purpose.  There 
are  two  possible  attitudes,  that  of  sj)acc  and  that  of  time,  or  that  of 
conception  and  that  of  intuition.  Tlie  conceptual  is  the  attitude 
taken  by  philosophy  universally,  to  be  sure;  which  explains  the 
futility  of  all  extant  discussions  of  the  "persistent  problems  of 
philosophy."  It  is  clear,  for  instance,  Monsieur  Bergson  tliinks. 
that  this  attitude  gives  rise,  in  an  automatic  and  inevitable  way,  to 
the  problem  of  freedom — that  is,  that  there  would  be  no  such 
problem  but  for  this  false  cognitive  attitude; — and  at  the  .same 
time  that  by  originating  in  this  unhappy  way  the  problem  is  neces- 
sarily a  pseudo-problem,  cannot  be  stated  without  contradiction. 
For  when  you  regard  mental  facts  in  tlie  spatial  or  conceptual  way, 
the  question  automatically  ari.ses,  how  are  these  facts  causally 
related  with  other  spatial  facts?  It  is  a  contradiction  because  by 
"these"  facts  you  mean  non-spatial  facts,  which,  in  the  nature  of 
causation,  can  not  be  causally  related  with  spatial  facts,  but  which, 
the  question  presupposes,  are  so  related.     Such  is  the  real  meaning 

8g 


163]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  BergsorCs  Philosophy  83 

of  the  traditional  problem  of  freedom,  The  solution,  says  Berg- 
son,  is  to  cease  thinking  spatially  of  that  which  is  temporal;  take 
the  other  attitude.  Once  you  have  done  so,  the  problem  vanishes; 
the  causal  relation  is  by  definition  a  spatial  relation,  and  there  are 
no  longer  two  spatial  terms  to  be  related.  Such  determinism  is 
the  associationistic  conception  of  mind  as  an  assemblage  of  dis- 
tinct, coexistent  elements  of  which  the  strongest  exerts  a  pre- 
ponderant influence  on  the  others.  Their  organization  is  a 
mechanical  system,  and  their  operations  obey  the  laws  of  mechan- 
ical causation. 

As  relative  (i.  e.  quantitative)  intensity  is  to  absolute,  qualitative 
intensity,  as  juxtaposited  multiplicity  is  to  interpenetrating  mul- 
tiplicity, so  is  determinate  organization  to  organization  by  free 
evolution.  The  categories  magnitude,  number  and  cause  apply  to 
space.  The  difference,  for  Bergson,  between  space  and  time  is,  as 
we  have  seen,  so  absolute  that  it  hardly  expresses  his  theory  aright 
to  say  that  to  the  above  three  characters  of  space  three  temporal 
characters  correspond.  Reason  seems  lacking  for  any  correspond- 
ence whatever.  This  is  certain,  at  any  rate:  that  when  intellect 
makes  time  an  object,  and  sees  it  greater  or  less,  divisible  and 
regularly  consequential,  three  things  are  true  about  the  real,  non- 
objective  nature  of  time,  each  of  which  truths  manifests  itself  to 
intellect,  but  wrongly,  erroneously.  Moreover,  it  is  plainly  by 
reasoned,  analytic  discourse  that  Bergson  discovers  that  the  above 
intellectual  manifestations  of  time's  essence  are  false.  One  dis- 
covers, furthermore,  by  this  conceptual  process,  just  how  they  are 
false,  and  corrects  them  with  a  result  so  conceptually  precise  and 
intelligible  that,  instead  of  these  three  characters  falsely  spatial, 
other  three  are  determined  as  truly  temporal.  Instead  of  mag- 
nitude, quality  has  in  this  way  been  substituted;  instead  of  mul- 
tiplicity, indivisible  variousness.  For  cause,  the  last  chapter  of 
the  Essai  substitutes  freedom. 

We  should  now  be  well  prepared  for  divining  the  nature  of  the 
freedom  which  is  consciousness,  or  more  generally,  life.  The 
organization  of  the  facts  of  a  given  consciousness  is  such  that  the 
person  is  focally  entire  in  any  one  of  them,  even  as  the  entire  body 
functions  in  each  of  its  functions  (cf.  page  20).  The  determinate 
type  of  organization  is  analogous  to  the  mechanically  actuated 
manikin,  not  to  the  natural  man,  even  though  those  fragments 
which  build  up  the  structure  of  the  associationist  soul  are  forces; 


84-  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [154 

for  these  forces  are  mutually  distinct  parts  of  the  soul,  whose 
union  in  it,  and  so  whose  interaction,  depends  on  some  principle 
extrinsic  to  any  of  them  and  is  thus  wholly  determined  from  with- 
out. In  the  developmental  type  of  organization,  on  the  contrary, 
the  wholeness  of  action  is  its  freedom,  rather  than  independence  of 
what  is  not  itself.  Although  such  independence  seems  to  belong  to 
it,  as  well,  what  Bergson  is  interested  to  emphasize  about  the  free- 
dom of  the  free  action  is  that  it  is  the  expression  of  the  entire 
person. 

In  the  domain  of  life,  there  is  no  identity,  ft)r  there  is  no  per- 
manence— "the  same  does  not  remain  the  same,"  as  Bergson  i)uts 
it.  The  ego  is  not  the  same  ego  in  any  two  moments;  it  is  not  the 
same  ego  that  deliberates  from  moment  to  moment;  and  two 
contradictory  feelings  that  move  it  are  never  respectively  self- 
identical  in  two  moments.  Indeed, if  the  case  were  otherwise.a  deci- 
sion would  never  be  made;  the  e(juini)rium  of  the  opposing  feelings 
would  never  be  resolved.  Merely  by  the  fact  that  the  person  has 
experienced  a  feeling,  he  is  modified  wlien  a  second  feeling  comes. 
The  feelings  are  the  continually  inodificti  ego  itself,  a  dynamic 
series  of  states  that  interpenetrate,  reinforce  each  other  and  result 
in  a  free  act  by  a  natural  evolution,  because  it  emanates  from  the 
entire  person. 

Such  is  the  character  of  the  free  act,  a  ver>'  intelligible  character, 
it  would  seem,  a  character  lending  itself  tractably  enough  to  verbal 
definition,  that  is,  conceptual  definition,  as  a  certain  relation  of  act 
to  agent.  Yet  it  must  immediately  be  added  that  what  .seems  so 
intelligible  and  so  conceptual  an  explication  of  this  "certain 
relation" — what  is  contained  in  the  two  paragraphs  preceding — is 
not  regarded  by  the  author  as  a  definition  of  freedom.  It  .seems 
that  there  is  a  distinction  between  the  formulation  of  a  conception 
on  one  hand,  and  a  definition,  on  the  other,  though  Bergson  does 
not  elucidate  this  distinction  explicitly,  and  I  have  had  to  give  u|) 
the  attempt.  The  distinction  is  evidently  of  crucial  imimrtance. 
nevertheless.  "We  can  now  formulate  our  conception  of  free- 
dom, "says  the  author,  on  page  '219  of  Time  and  Free  Will. 
"Freedom  is  the  relation  of  the  concrete  self  to  the  act  which  it 
performs.  This  relation  is  indefinable  just  because  we  are  free. 
For  we  can  analyze  a  thing,  but  not  a  process;  we  can  break  up 
extensity,  but  not  duration.  Or,  if  we  persist  in  analyzing  it,  we 
unconsciously  transform  the  j)rocess  into  a  thing,  and  duration 


155]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  85 

into  extensity  .  ,  .  and,  as  we  have  begun  by,  so  to  speak, 
stereotyping  tlie  activity  of  the  self,  we  see  spontaneity  settle  down 
into  inertia  and  freedom  into  necessity.  Thus,  any  positive 
definition  of  freedom  will  ensure  the  victory  of  determinism. " 

The  attempt  is  therefore  unwisely  made  by  indeterminists  to 
define  freedom  by  meeting  determinists  on  their  own  ground  when 
the  latter  turn  the  (|uestion  of  freedom  into  considerations  of  the 
relations  of  the  voluntary  act  to  its  antecedents,  characterizing 
voluntary  activity  as  essentially  foreseeable  before,  or  apodictically 
intelligible  after  the  fact.  When  indeterminists  permit  themselves 
to  be  thus  ambushed,  they  commit  themselves  to  the  support  of 
determinism,  by  accej)ting  the  deterministic  postulate,  in  the  one 
case  that  "foreseeable"  has  intelligible  meaning  applied  to  psychic 
states,  which  it  has  not ;  or,  in  the  other  case,  that  willed  acts  are 
intelligible  both  before  and  after  the  fact. 

The  determinist,  that  is, — to  take  the  second  case  first — pro- 
fesses that  an  act  depends  in  a  mechanical  way  upon  certain  an- 
tecedents. The  indetorminist  contends  that  the  same  antecedents 
could  have  resulted  in  cither  of  several  different  acts,  equally 
possible.  Defenders  and  opponents  of  freedom  agree  in  making 
a  kind  of  mechanical  oscillation  })etween  two  points  precede  the 
action.  1  choo.se  A.  The  indeterminists  say,  You  have  deliber- 
ated; then  B  was  i>ossible.  The  determinists  reply,  I  have  chosen; 
therefore  I  had  some  rea.son  to  do  so,  and  when  B  is  declared 
e(iually  i)ossible,  this  reason  is  forgotten;  one  of  the  conditions  of 
the  problem  is  ignored.  Both  represent  the  activitj'  by  a  deliber- 
ative route  which  divides.  Call  the  point  of  the  division  O;  then 
the  divisions  of  the  forked  line  OA  and  OB  symbohze  the  two 
divisions  which  abstraction  distinguishes  within  the  continuous 
activity,  of  which  A  is  the  termination.  But  while  determinists 
take  account  of  everything,  and  find  that  the  route  MOA  has  been 
traversed,  their  opponents  ignore  one  of  the  data  with  which  they 
have  constructed  the  figure;  and,  .after  tracing  the  lines  OA  and  OB, 
which  ought  to  be  united  if  they  are  to  represent  the  progression 
of  the  ego's  activity,  they  make  this  progression  go  back  to  O 
and  begin  oscillating  again ! 

The  trouble  with  both  these  solutions,  Bergson  says,  is  that  they 
presuppose  an  achieved  deliberation  and  resolution,  representable 
in  space  by  a  geometrical  figure.  The  question.  Could  the  ego, 
having  traversed  the  route  MO  and  decided  on  A,  have  chosen  B? 


86  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [156 

is  nonsense:  to  put  such  a  question  is  to  aflfirm  the  possibiHty  of 
adequately  representing  time  by  space,  succession  by  simultaneity. 
It  is  to  attribute  to  the  figure  traced  the  value  of  an  image  and  not 
merely  of  a  symbol.  Figures  represent  things,  not  progressions: 
how  shall  a  figure  furnish  the  least  indication  of  the  concrete 
motion,  of  the  dynamic  progression  by  which  the  deliberation 
results  in  the  act?  The  defenders  of  freedom  say,  The  route  is  not 
yet  traced;  therefore  one  can  take  any  direction.  To  which  we 
reply,  You  can  speak  of  a  route,  in  such  a  connection,  only  after 
the  action  is  accomplished,  and  then  it  has  been  traced.  The 
determinists  say,  The  route  has  been  traced  thus;  therefore  its 
possible  direction  was  only  that  particular  direction.  To  which 
we  reply,  Before  the  route  was  traced  there  was  no  direction,  pos- 
sible or  impossible;  there  could,  as  yet,  be  no  question  of  a  route. 
In  its  lowest  terms  this  merely  means:  The  act,  once  accom- 
plished, is  accomplished;  and  the  argument  of  the  determinists: 
The  act,  before  being  accomplished,  wa.s  not  as  yet  an  act.  The 
question  of  freedom  is  not  touched,  because  freedom  is  a  shade  or 
quality  of  the  act  itself,  not  a  relation  of  this  act  with  what  it  is 
not  nor  with  what  it  can  be.  Deliberation  is  not  oscillation  in 
space;  it  is  dynamic  progression,  in  which  the  ego  and  the  motives 
are  in  a  continual  becoming,  as  living  l)eings. 

Indeterminists,  Professor  Bergson  says,  must  beware,  again,  of 
arguing  against  the  prevision  of  voluntary'  acts.  Once  more,  this 
is  not  because  prevision  of  a  voluntary  act  is  possible,  but  because 
there  is  no  sense  in  the  phrase.  If  Paul  knew  all  the  conditions 
under  which  Peter  acts,  his  imagination  would  relive  Peter's 
history.  He  must  pass  through  Peter's  very  own  psychic  states, 
to  know  with  precision  their  intensity  and  their  imi)ortance  in 
relation  to  his  other  states.  The  intensity,  in  fact,  is  the  peculiar 
quality  of  the  feeling  itself.  Now,  to  know  all  the  antecedents  of 
the  act  would  bring  you  to  the  act  itself,  which  is  their  continua- 
tion, and  not  merely  their  result,  and  above  all  in  no  way  separate 
from  them.  To  reHve  Peter's  history  is  just  to  become  Peter — 
that  is  the  only  way  Paul  could  conceivably  "know  all  the  ante- 
cedents" of  the  act  in  question.  There  is  no  (juestion  of  predicting 
the  act,  but  simply  of  acting.  Knowledge  of  the  antecedents  of  the 
act  without  knowledge  of  the  act  is  an  absurdity,  a  contradiction. 
The  indeterminists  can  mean  nothing,  by  such  a  contention  as  this, 
but  that  the  act  is  not  an  act  until  it  is  acted— which  is  hardly 


157]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  87 

worth  meaning; — and  the  determinists  can  mean  only  that  the  act, 
once  acted,  is  acted — which  is  no  better.  The  subject  of  freedom 
is  beside  the  point,  in  such  a  debate. 

So  the  question  of  prevision  comes  to  this :  Is  time  spatial?  You 
drew  Peter's  states,  you  perceived  his  life  as  a  marking  in  space. 
You  then  rubbed  out,  in  thought,  the  part  OA,  and  asked  if, 
knowing  the  i)art  before  O,  you  could  have  determined  OA  before- 
hand. That  is  the  question  you  put  when  you  bring  in  Paul's 
representation  of  the  conditions  (and  therefore  their  materializa- 
tion) under  which  Peter  shall  act.  After  having  identified  Paul 
with  Peter,  you  make  Paul  take  his  former  point  of  view,  from 
which  he  now  sees  the  line  MOA  complete,  having  just  traced  it  in 
the  role  of  Peter. 

Prevision  of  natural  phenomena  has  not  the  slightest  analogy 
with  that  of  a  voluntary  act.  Time,  in  scientific  formulae,  is 
always  and  only  a  number  of  simultaneities.  The  intervals  may  be 
of  any  length ;  they  have  nothing  to  do  ^^^th  the  calculation.  Fore- 
seeing natural  phenomena  is  making  them  present,  or  bringing 
them  at  least  enormously  nearer.  It  is  the  intervals,  the  units 
themselves — just  what  the  physicist  has  nothing  to  do  with —  that 
interest  the  psychologist.  A  feeling  half  as  long  would  not  be  the 
same  feeling.  But  when  one  asks  if  a  future  action  can  be  foreseen, 
one  identifies  physical  time,  which  is  a  number,  with  real  psycho- 
logical duration,  which  has  no  analogy  with  number.  In  the  region 
of  psychological  states  there  is  no  appreciable  difference  between 
foreseeing,  seeing  and  acting. 

According  to  the  mechanical  law  of  causation,  the  same  causes 
always  produce  the  same  effects.  But,  in  the  region  of  psychic 
states,  this  law  is  neither  true  nor  false,  but  meaningless;  for  in  this 
region  there  is  no  "always:"  there  is  only  "once."  A  repeated 
feeling  is  a  radically  different  feeling.  It  retains  the  same  name 
only  because  it  corresponds  to  the  same  external  cause,  or  is  out- 
wardly expressed  by  analogous  signs.  It  was  just  said  that  the 
ego  is  not  the  same  in  any  two  moments  of  its  history.  It  is 
modified  incessantly  by  the  accumulation  of  its  past.  One's 
character  at  any  moment,  is  the  condensation  of  one's  past.  Du- 
ration acts  as  a  cause;  but  this  temporal  or  psychological  causation 
has  no  more  analogy  with  what  is  called  causation  in  nature  than 
temporal  variousness  has  with  number,  or  intensity  with  magm- 
tude.     A  causality  which  is  necessary  connection  is,  at  bottom. 


88  Univernty  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [lOs 

identity;  the  effect  is  an  expression  of  the  cause,  ai>  mathematical 
functions  are  expressions  of  eacli  other.  But  no  psychic  state  has 
this  virtual  identity  with,  or  mathematical  reducibility  to,  any 
other  with  which  it  would  thus  be  in  the  ''necessary"  kind  of 
causal  relation.  Such  effect  is  not  given  in  the  cause,  but  is 
absolutely  new. 

Time  that  has  passed  is  an  objective  thing,  and  is  representable 
by  space;  time  passing  is  a  subjective  i)rocess,  and  is  tiol  represent- 
able. The  free  act  is  the  actual  passing  of  time;  time  in  its  passing 
is  the  very  stuff  of  the  existence  of  freedom.  Analyze  an  act,  an<l 
you  make  it  a  thing.  Then  its  spontaneity  is  altered  into  inertia, 
its  freedom  into  necessity.  Hence  any  definition  of  freedom  makes 
it  determinism.  But,  though  the  analysis  of  the  act  and  the 
definition  of  freedom  are  illusory  undertakings,  the  fundamental 
fact  of  freedom  remains  unassailable  by  any  argument. 

Bergson's  way  of  vindicating  free<lom  is  thus  to  find  no  case 
against  it.  Of  the  positive  sort,  the  only,  and  sufficient  proof  is 
appeal  to  consciousness.  Freed(»m  is  an  immediate  datum  of 
consciousness. 

This  is  confusing  to  anyone  who  cannot  follow  Berg.son  in  lii> 
view  that  subject  and  object,  in  actual  intuitive  consciousness,  are 
indistinguishable,  identical.  And  this  fusion  of  the  i>ole.s  of  con- 
sciousness while  thenature  of  consciousness  not  merely  suffers  noth- 
ingbut  even  attains  its  aj)ogee  tlieroby.needs  more  justification  than 
Bergson  has  given  it.  Freedom  is  a  datum  of  con.sciousness;  but,  as 
undetermined,  it  nnisl,  on  Bergson's  prin(i|)les,  be  consciousness  it- 
self— which,  indeed,  is  plainly  enough  the  leaching  intended.  Free- 
dom is  consciousness,  then,  purely  subjective.  In  what  sen.se  is  it  a 
datum  of  consciousness?  If  it  is  a  datum,  is  it  not  an  object,  of 
consciousness.^  It  seems  a  case  where,  in  order  to  see,  you  musn't 
look,  lest  looking  make  what  is  purely  subjective  an  object !  This 
is  hardly  the  case  of  the  fovea  and  the  faint  star,  where  looking 
loses  your  object;  for  here,  looking  rather  produces  it  where  no 
object  belongs,  or — perhaps  one  should  say — transforms  it.  Your 
look,  says  Gustave  Belot,^'  congeals  and  immobilizes  it,  denatures 
it  like  the  Gorgon's  stare!  It  is  knowable,  says  Bergson,  only  by 
being  lived.  It  is  a  feeling  we  have.  But  the  trouble  is  that,  to  be 

43.  Une  Uicorie  twutrllr  de  la  liberie  {Lrs  donnrrs  irumrdiaUs),  In  tlio  Rftuf 
Phtlosophique,  Vol.  XXIX  (1890).  pp.  361-392. 


169]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  BergsorCs  Philosophy  89 

known  as  undetermined,  as  freedom,  to  be  even  a  feeling  we  have, 
it  is  back  upon  our  hands  as  a  datum,  as  an  object. 

Before  I  comment  in  my  own  way  on  the  Bergsonian  view  of 
freedom,  I  wish  to  call  to  the  attention  of  Enghsh  readers  the  keen 
reaction  of  this  French  critic  of  Bergson.  Belot  objects  to  the 
modest-seeming  statement  that  freedom  is  a  feeling  we  have. 
Neither  psychology,  he  thinks,  nor  common  sense,  approves.*^ 
They  establish,  on  the  contrary,  a  sensible  difference  between 
freedom,  whatever  it  may  be,  and  the  feeling  we  have  of  it — any 
feeling  we  can  possibly  have.  Our  feeling  of  freedom  is  much  less 
variable  than  our  freedom.  "  We  agree  not  to  attribute  a  veritable 
practical  freedom  to  the  dreaming  man,  to  the  somnambulist,  to 
the  man  affected  with  some  mental  disease.  Yet  the  man  who,  in 
dream,  sees  himself  act,  sees  himself  free  in  his  action;  the  som- 
nambulist equally  feels  himself  free  and  attributes  to  himself,  in  his 
dream,  a  responsibility  that  we  decline  to  put  upon  him,  and  which 
he  will  reject,  himself,  when  he  wakes**  .  .  .  The  furious 
madman  must  ordinarily  feel  himself  free  in  the  accomplishment  of 
a  murder  for  which  a  tribunal  will  not  consent  to  punish  him.  The 
fact  is,  it  suffices,  in  order  that  we  should  feel  ourselves  free,  that 
our  acts  should  be  in  harmony  with  our  ideas  and  our  feelings. 
Now,  that  may  very  well  be,  in  the  cases  of  the  dreamer,  the 
somnambulist,  the  nuulman.  .  .  .  They  would  therefore 
feel  themselves  free.  But  they  are  not  free;  for  they  only  act  from 
an  incomplete  consciousness;  and  a  great  number  of  elements  of 
their  nornud  ego,  which  would  permit  the  revision,  the  correction, 
the  inhibition,  are  lacking."  A  glimmering  of  the  fact  of  one's 
madness  is  a  token  of  the  only  residimm  there  is  of  freedom.  "It 
is  to  conserve  some  freedom,  to  perceive  that  one  no  longer  is 
master  of  oneself. " 

Bergson  is  alive  to  all  this — sometimes,  as  when  he  says  that  the 
freedom  of  a  free  action  is  its  entirety,  its  expression  of  the  total 
personality.  But  Belot  is  quite  justified  in  charging  him  with  for- 
getting it,  for  only  by  forgetting  it  could  he  conceive  of  freedom  as 
an  immediate  datum  of  consciousness.  It  is,  indeed,  far  from  the 
case  that  our  freedom  is  nothing  but  the  feeling  we  have  of  it,  or 
that  it  is  proportional  to  this  feeling.     What  is  so  altered  by   the 

44.  Op.  cit.,  p.  3G8. 

45.  The  feeling  of  guilt,  and,  bo,  of  responsibility  and  freedom,  can  be  crushing 
in  dreams,  as  anyone  knows  who  is  given  to  appearing  in  dream  public  indecently 
clothed,  or  not  clothed  at  all. 


. 


90 


University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [160 


determinist  habit  of  mind,  by  the  conceptual  attitude  toward  will, 
is  not  at  all  one's  feehng  of  freedom,  but  only  one's  interpretation 
of  it.  An  immediate,  spontaneous  feeling,  being  prior  to  theory 
and  analysis,  is  safe  from  any  influence  from  them.  In  the  most 
incorrigible  determinist,  consciousness  of  the  wish,  other  things 
equal,  is  exactly  the  same  as  in  the  most  incorniptible  inde- 
terminist. 

Precise  determination  of  will  is  not  only  not  contrarj'  to  freedom 
but  is  indispensable  to  it.  Minimizinj,'  the  value  of  motive  in 
activity  is  loss,  not  gain,  to  freedom.  The  motive  is  what  connects 
our  act  to  our  whole  j)ersonality,  and  makes  it  ours.  Without  this 
connection,  we  are  not  free;  its  interrupticm  is  a  limitation,  not  the 
condition,  of  freedom.  And  indeed  freedom  is  so  limited  by  the 
mass  of  our  unreflecting  impulses.  Hergson  is  right  in  saying  that 
we  are  rarely  free.  IJut  therefore  he  is  wrong  in  saying  tlial  free- 
dom is  the  mere  spontaneity  of  the  ego. 

In  a  certain  passage*''  Bergson  describes  freedom  in  a  w;iy  which 
seems  almost  explicitly  to  deny  the  doctrine  that  it  is  tlie  entirety 
of  will.  Here  it  is  a  revolution  of  one  part  of  the  self  against  tlir 
rest,  far  from  emanating  from  the  total  .self.  And  such  revolution, 
just  so  far  as  it  is  purely  spontaneous,  or  arbitrary,  is  irresponsible 
instead  of  free.  Just  so  far,  on  the  other  hand,  as  it  is  not  arbitrary, 
it  is  determined.  In  fact,  however,  appearance  of  arbitrariness 
argues  nothing  about  determination  except  that  one  is  ignorant 
about  it. 

In  showing  the  absurdity  of  all  argumentation  for  or  against  the 
determination  of  a  future  voluntary  act  by  present  conditions,  the 
considerations  offered  by  IJergson  are  ahnost  perfect  proof  of  such 
determination.  The  reason  we  cannot  think  anotlier's  thought 
without  disfiguring  it  is  just  that  the  conditions  of  the  thought, 
and  .so  of  the  act,  are  not  all  reunited.  The  act,  then,  is  supposed 
to  depend  on  these  conditions.  Now,  an  absolute  present  is  a 
fiction;  each  moment  of  the  true  duration  of  consciousness  is  a 
commencement  and  an  achievement.  Determination  is  nothing 
but  that  intimate  connection  of  events  which  prevents  us  from 
isolatmg  an  absolute  present.  The  case  of  Peter  and  Paul  then, 
proves  only  that  foresight  could  not  be  adeipiate  to  determination, 
not  that  determination  is  absent.     The  inabilitv  of  even  the  author 


46.     Time  flwd  Free  W'i».  p.  158. 


161]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  91 

of  an  act  to  foresee  it  is  no  criterion  of  its  freedom.  Any  free  acts 
of  our  o\NTi  that  we  do  foresee,  we  foresee  as  connected  with  our 
present  state,  as  ours,  in  fact ;  it  is  that  which  makes  their  freedom, 
but  that  supposes  also  their  determination.  This  foresight,  it  may 
be  said,  is  always  insufficient  and  imperfect.  So  much  the  worse 
for  freedom,  not  the  better.  It  is  thereby  limited,  not  made. 
There  are,  indeed,  always  events  outside  of  us  that  baffle  our  cal- 
culations, as  well  as  unconscious  tendencies,  unperceived  forces 
within  us,  indistinctly  developing  beneath  the  reflective  and  clear- 
seeing  ego  (Bergson  calls  this  the  superficial,  Belot  the  higher  ego) 
which  suddenly  break  out,  rout  it  and  upset  it.  Such  civil  war  is 
anything  but  freedom. 

The  uniciueness  of  psychic  states,  whether  free  or  not,  neither 
exempts  them  from  determination  nor  even  differentiates  them 
from  physical  states.  That  a  psychic  state  is  not  reproducible 
Bergson  shows  to  be  because  the  past,  incessantly  accumulating 
and  modifying  itself,  is  never  the  same  in  two  moments.  A  clearer 
statement  of  the  solidarity  of  past  and  present — i.  e.  of  determi- 
nation— could  not  be  made.  It  may  well  be  true  that  in  the 
physical  as  well  as  in  the  moral  world,  every  individual  is  without 
counterpart;  it  is  none  the  less  a  product  of  nature,  for  its  unique- 
ness; and,  as  a  product  of  nature,  determined,  in  its  own  unique- 
ness, by  nature.  Among  our  most  unique  acts,  the  most  original 
are  far  from  being  the  freest.  The  eccentricities  of  the  madman 
are  more  original  than  the  sober  doings  of  the  rational,  but  not  so 
free.  The  more  enlightened  men  are,  the  freer;  but  the  more  they 
do  and  think  the  same  thing.  Their  divergences  come  from  their 
ignorances  and  their  unconsciousness,  which  are  also  the  limits  of 
their  freedom.  It  is  the  same  with  them  as  with  nature:  it  is 
when  it  produces  monsters  that  it  is  most  new,  but  it  is  then  also 
that  it  has  been  least  free,  most  constrained  in  its  doings. 

Monsieur  Bergson  has  not  done  away  with  psychological 
determinism;  but  if  he  had,  he  would  have  hindered  freedom  rather 
than  helped  it.  But  the  problem  is  not  purely  psychological;  it  is 
psycho-physical.  We  are  at  once  body  and  consciousness.  A 
freedom  which  were  not  exerted  in  the  outer  world  would  be  abso- 
lutely nominal  and  illusory;  and  in  order  to  manifest  itself  therein, 
it  must  be  accompanied  by  physical  processes.  These  too,  then, 
if  determinism  is  contrary  to  freedom,  must  be  exempt  from 
determination. 


92  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [162 

Bergson's  denial  of  psycho-physical  parallelism*^  is  no  gain  for 
freedom.  If  no  external  effect  is  essentially  involved  in  a  volition, 
the  volition  is  impotent — which  is  surely  not  to  be  free.  Nor 
would  it  be  characteristic  of  freedom  to  have  activities  going  on  in 
the  organism  without  the  avowal  of  consciousness.  So  far  as  we 
do  possess  such  unconscious  goings-on,  we  are  absolutely  passive  to 
their  operation.  Psycho-physiological  parallelism*^  is  a  condition 
of  freedom,  not  its  negation.  Some  sort  of  correspondence  is 
necessary  to  the  feeling  of  freedom,  and  in  that  case  freedom  cannot 
dispense  with  determinism  in  nature,  at  least.  One  might,  per- 
haps, suppose  a  preestablished  harmony  between  a  contingency 
(the  moral  world)  and  a  determinism  (the  physical);  it  would  be 
easier  to  suppose  it  between  two  determinisms;  but  between  two 
contingencies — that  is  too  much  to  ask ! 

Suppose,  then,  the  ability  of  mind  to  produce,  veritably  cause 
physical  modifications.  Suppose  an  energ>'  not  subject  to  calcula- 
tion. But  how  shall  we  ever  know  such  an  energy  in  tlie  external 
world?  All  that  is  spatial  is  calculable,  if  number  is  derived  from 
space.  How  could  an  energj',  then,  be  manifest  in  the  physical 
universe,  i.  e.  in  space,  without  being  thereby  subjected  to  the 
same  forms  of  quantity  and  to  the  requirements  of  calculation? 

Bergson's  attempt  to  repudiate  the  problem  of  determinism,  as 
a  pseudo-problem,  results  in  his  vacillation  between  the  two  sides 
of  the  controversy.  Sometimes  he  accei)ts  the  solidarity  of  our 
acts  with  the  rest  of  our  conscious  life,  sometimes  he  denies  it; 
which  is  to  vindicate  freedom  sometimes  by  determinism,  some- 
times by  indeterminism.  In  the  beginning  he  founds  freedom  in 
the  mutual  penetration  of  the  states  of  consciousness;  even  sensa- 
tion is  a  commencement  of  freedom,  because  it  embraces  "the 
sketching  and,  as  it  were,  prefiguring  of  the  future  automatic 
movements ;*9  and  the  free  act  is  defined  as  that  which  "springs 
from  the  self  "^^  without  intervention  of  anything  strange.  Then, 
little  by  little,  the  contrary  thesis  takes  the  upper  hand :  the  act  of 


.^^•.  ^atter  and  Memory,  p.  x;  also  an  article  entitled  Lr  paralogisme  paveho- 
c5k*o?,o^*^^1'"  ^^^  Revue  de  Metaphusique  et  de  Morale.  Vol.  XI 1  (1904).  pp. 
8a5-yo8.  This  article  is  also  in  the  Rapports  et  comptes  rendus  du  deuxieme  congres 
tnternattonalde  philosophic,  1905,  Part  I. 

„  *^U  v,^^'®  causal  relation  between  mental  and  cerebral  states — i.  e.  Interaction — 
would  be aB  alternative  "condition  of  freedom;"  but  this  relation  is  included  in 
iiergson  s  denial  of  any  sort  of  correspondence  or  equivalence  (such  as  the  quanti- 
tative equivalence  of  causation)  between  states  of  brain  and  states  of  mind. 

49.  Time  and  Free  Will,  p.  34. 

50.  Ibid.,  p.  172. 


163]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  93 

will  becomes  a  coup  d'etat;  "the  successive  moments  of  real  time 
are  not  bound  up  with  one  another ;^^  the  dynamic  conception 
supposes  "that  the  future  is  not  more  closely  bound  up  with  the 
present  in  the  external  world  than  it  is  in  our  own  inner  life."^^ 
Bergson  maintains,  to  be  sure,  that  soUdarity  can  be  admitted 
between  the  past  and  the  present  and  denied  between  present  and 
future.  Once  the  event  happens  it  is  indeed  necessary  that  we 
should  be  able  to  explain  it,  and  we  can  always  do  so  by  plausible 
reasons.  But  this  connection  is  established  after  the  fact  for  the 
satisfaction  of  our  discursive  reason.  The  past  is  fixed,  it  cannot 
not  have  been;  it  has  become  a  thing,  under  the  domain  of  the  under- 
standing and  of  analj^sis.  Whereas,  at  the  moment  of  enactment, 
the  activity  is  a  process,  and  so  not  capable  of  analysis.  When  the 
route  is  traced,  we  can  analyze  its  directions  and  windings,  but  it 
is  not  traced  in  advance  of  being  traced ;  it  is  the  tracing  that  makes 
the  route,  not  the  route  that  determines  the  tracing.  You  can 
explain  what  is  given,  but  there  is  no  explaining  what  is  not  given. 
Bergson,  however,  does  not  keep  this  point  of  view.  The  future, 
we  have  just  seen,  is  "prefigured"  in  the  present.  Then  it  is  as 
necessary  to  the  feeling  of  our  freedom  to  be  able  to  connect  our 
future  to  our  present  in  our  decision,  as  to  be  able,  once  the  act  is 
accomplished,  to  give  account  of  it  by  reasons  drawn  from  our 
consciousness.  Bergson's  thought  vacillates  this  way  because  he 
attributes  two  incompatible  characters  to  the  inner  life,  quaUta- 
tive  heterogeneity  and  mutual  penetration  of  its  states.  Grant 
the  heterogeneity  and  you  have  an  infinitesimal  dust,  the  very 
denial  of  connection  and  penetration.  If  the  states  penetrate 
there  are  always  two  near  enough  to  each  other  in  quality  to  form 
an  identical  whole,  while  they  dififer  only  in  degree,  as  two  very 
near  shades  of  the  same  color.  But  then  there  is  a  quantitative, 
and  so  a  homogeneous,  aspect  of  the  inner  life. 


61.     Ibid.,  p.  208. 
52,      Ibid.,  p.  215. 


Chapter  IV 

bergson's  abhorrence  of  determinatexess 

A  deep,  temperamental  abhorrence  of  determinatcness — that  is 
the  motive  of  ]iergsonism.  By  admission  of  Bergson,  any  object 
of  the  mind  is  determinate.  But  tlicrcfore  a  philosoi)hy  that 
repudiates  determinatcness  in  the  nature  of  rcahty  is  ineffable 
because  it  is  objectless.  It  is  ineffable  also  iKH-ause  any  reason 
offered  for  the  indeterminateness  of  reality  is  determination  of  if. 
The  dread  of  determinatcness  is  the  dread  of  reason,  of  explana- 
tion, of  interpretation — in  a  word,  of  philosojihy.  \  consciousness 
which  can  'testify  that  we  arc  free'  is  not  an  objectless  Cf)nscious- 
ness;  and  freedom,  if  consciousness  can  testify  to  it,  cannot  be  an 
indeterminate  nor  an  immediate  (j.  e.  unobjectifietl)  datum  of 
consciousness.  Bergson's  position  is  that  it  is  essential  to  the  true 
nature  of  reality  in  itself,  under  whatever  aspect — e.  g.  duration, 
motion,  freedom  etc. — to  be  subjective;  and  that  this  is  why  Zeno 
is  right  in  finding  motion,  for  instance,  unthinkable;  for  "un- 
thinkable" properlv  means  (though  it  di<l  not  mean,  for  Zeno) 
incapable  of  l>ecoming  objective.  This  to  say,  is  it  not.  that  the 
true  nature  of  reality  independently  of  all  point  of  view  is  to  be 
viewed  from  a  certain  point!  It  comes  to  this,  at  Icjust,  if  to  be 
subjective  is  compatible  with  being  known  in  any  .sense,  with 
being  contained  within  consciousness  at  all.  Otherwise  it  comes 
to  the  skeptical  (and  self-contradictory)  (hKtrine  that  it  is 
essential  to  the  true  nature  of  reality  to  be  unknowable  in  every 
sense.  The  former,  of  cour.se,  is  Bergson's  view  regarding  subjec- 
tivity.*^ 

The  anti-intellectualist  doctrine,  however,  that  data  of  con- 
sciousness cannot  be  understood,  conceptualized,  defined,  or  even 


5.3.      Time  and  Free  WiU,  p.  83. 

9U 


165]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  95 

named — cannot,  in  short,  be  objectified — without  contradiction  is 
as  important  for  tlie  problem  of  knowledge  as  it  is  for  the  problem 
of  freedom.  Professor  Perry's  analysis  of  inmiediatism*^  shows  the 
misunderstanding  of  what  it  is  to  conceptualize,  which  underlies 
such  a  doctrine.  The  anti-intellectualist  idea  seems  to  be  that  the 
concept  is  static,  and  common  to  more  than  one  consciousness,  and 
universal  in  its  denotation,  and  sharply  discrete;  and  that  for  these 
reasons  it  could  nf)t  correspond  to  what  is  fluid  and  private  and 
unicjuely  particular  and  continuous.  It  is  evidently  the  **copy 
theory"  of  knowledge,  which  unconsciously  determines  this  criti- 
cism of  the  concept.  Concepts  are  invalid,  applied  to  life,  becmtse 
they  are  not  like  liiing  objects!  "You  cannot  make  continuous 
being  out  of  discontinuities,"  is  James's  criticism."  And  Bergson's: 
"Instead  of  a  flux  of  fleeting  shades  merging  into  each  other 
(intellect  I  iKTCoives  distinct  and,  so  to  speak,  solid  colors,  set  side 
by  side  like  the  beads  of  a  necklace."-"^  But,  as  Perry  shows,  to 
conceptualize  is  nothing  like  this  procedure.  Conception  is  suh- 
stitufion  of  one  object  of  immediate  consciousness  which  is  conven- 
iently abstract,  for  another  object  which  is,  in  the  circumstances  of 
the  conceiving,  inconvenient  in  its  concrete  fulness.  All  that  is 
necessary  in  order  that  this  substitutional  mode  of  consciousness 
.should  be  valid  and  true  knowledge  of  the  object  so  symbolized,  is 
that  the  substitute  should  mean  that  object.  And  that  it  can  and 
does  mean  if  when  the  object  is  a  subjective  state  is  no  more  than 
the  fact  that, on  Bergson's  own  showing,such  states  are  symbolized. 
For  to  mean  is  essentially  to  symbolize.  Certainly  no  one  concept 
is  a  rounded-out  exhaustive  awareness,  so  to  speak,  of  the  symbol- 
ized object.  But  this  is  no  more  than  to  .say  that  conceiving  is  a 
selective  and  eliminating  mode  of  consciousness — which  does  not 
distinguish  it  from  any  other  mode,  the  most  immediate  and 
intuitive  possible  state  of  genuine  significant  consciousness  being 
essentially  as  much  an  elimination  as  a  positing. 

Since,  then,  a  .symbol  never  has  (just  by  reason  of  its  function  as 
symbol)  the  same  structure  as  the  object  symbolized,  there  is 
nothing  either  in  the  innnobility,  or  the  publicity,  or  the  universal- 
ity, or  the  discreteness  of  any  concept,  or  in  its  inclusion  of  all  these 
characters,  to  prevent  its  validly  meaning  the  fluid  and  private 


54.  Present  Philosophical  Tendencirs,  Chapter  X,  section  6. 

55.  A    Pluralistic    Universe,    p.    23<>.     Quoted    from    Professor    Perry's    work, 
named  al>ove. 

56.  Creatire  Evolution,  p.  .3. 


pg  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [166 

and  particular  and  continuous.  And  the  real  must  necessarily 
have  the  conceptual  characters,  since  the  characters  correlative  to 
them,  alone  regarded  by  Bergson  as  characters  of  reality,  have  no 
meaning  except  correlatively  to  the  conceptual  characters.  Thus 
"fluidity  of  nothing"  is  a  phrase  without  meaning,  The  some- 
thing which  is  fluid,  requires,  in  order  that  fluidity  as  such  shall  be 
a  datum  of  experience,  a  coeflScient  aspect  of  immobility.  It  is 
not  fluidity  that  flows.  The  immobile,  snajj-shot  conceptual  form 
— not  only  does  this  belong  to  the  cataract,  as  the  possibility  of 
photographing  it  proves,  but  this  very  form  is  indispensable  to  the 
fact  of  flow  in  its  genuine  concreteness.  As  for  uni(jueness,  a  fact 
so  unique  that  it  is  like  nothing  else  in  any  respect,  could  not  be 
discriminated.  The  bare  discernibleness  of  a  datum  requires  a 
basis  of  discrimination  which  is  common  to  it  and  to  that  from 
which  it  is  discriminated.  Continuity  is  analogous  with  unity, 
and  has  no  meaning  if  there  is  no  asj)ect,  in  it,  of  composition,  and 
so  of  discreteness,  as  unity  is  nothing  if  not  union  of  a  plurality. 
That  the  real  has  the  aspects  eulogistically  favored  l)y  intuitionism 
is  beyond  question.  That  it  has  not  the  comi)kMncntary  con- 
ceptual aspects  is  demonstral)ly  false,  and  is  an  illusion  of  "exclu- 
sive particularity,"  explainable  only  by  that  prej)ossession  with  a 
certain  abstract  view,  whose  i)sychological  origin  has  been  rej)eat- 
edly  noted  in  this  study. 

Is  it  not  truly  a  paradox  to  give  the  unnamable  a  long  list  of 
names — life,  consciousness,  freedom,  duration,  intensity,  (quality, 
heterogeneity  etc. — and  to  write  a  book,  whether  practical  or 
speculative,  concerning  that  which  will  not  articulate  into  dis- 
course, (cf, above, p. 54-5),  employing  these  names  on  every  page; 
and  to  conclude  with  a  studied  definition  of  freedom;  and  to  avow 
that  the  purpose  of  it  all  is  to  make  the  fact  understood  that  the 
subject-matter  cannot  even  be  named,  still  less  defined  or  dis- 
coursed about  or  understood?  It  seems  improper  to  consider  that 
the  book  is  about  such  a  subject,  and  yet  necessary  to  suppose  that 
it  is  about  some  subject,  and  impossible  to  assign  another.  If  it  is 
true  that,  in  seeming  to  name  this  subject,  you  are  deluded;  that, 
in  trying  to  talk  about  it,  you  fail,  and  name  and  talk  about  some- 
thing else,  instead,  its  spatialized  symbol — then  the  conclusion  is 
perfectly  vaUd  that  such  a  book  is  a  case  of  this  delusion.  And 
the  trouble  lies  in  that  reifying  of  the  coefficients  of  reality  and  of 
consciousness  which  is  the  condition  of  a  philosophy  of  "pure" 


167]  Mitchell:    Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  97 

intuition  (cf.  page  29),  To  suppose  that  genuine  cases  of  aware- 
ness can  be  either  pure  intuition  or  pure  conception  is  to  reify  these 
coefficient  aspects  of  consciousness,  which  are  as  truly  both  indis- 
pensable for  the  genuine  concreteness  of  an  actual  case  of  awareness 
as  are  the  positive  sine  and  cosine  for  the  real  acuteness  of  an  angle 
(i.  e.  for  the  angle  to  enclose  acutely  space  revolved-through). 
As  the  zero  point  of  either  trigonometric  projection  is  the  vanish- 
ing-point of  the  entity  of  whose  nature  they  are  coefficient  func- 
tions, so  the  "purity"  of  either  coefficient  function  of  consciousness 
is  the  vanishing  of  any  real  awareness. ^^ 

If  no  logical  reason  impugns  the  vahdity  of  conceptual  knowledge 
of  subjective  states,  no  more  does  the  pragmatic  test  discredit 
such  knowledge.  It  is  as  good,  genuine  knowledge  in  its  satis- 
faction of  vital  interest  as  the  sensation,  say,  which  is  the  object  of 
the  state  in  question.  Helen  Keller,  incapable  of  the  sensation 
blue,  knows  the  sensation — conceptually  alone,  of  necessity — 
rather  better,  even,  it  may  be,  than  she  would  ever  have  known  it 
if  her  life  had  been  more  occupied  in  the  knowing  of  blue — and 
other  such — things;  better,  at  any  rate,  certainly,  than  most 
people  know  it.  All  this  knowledge  can  be  is  a  rationalizing  of 
"blue:"  she  can  name  it,  define  it,  understand  it,  make  articulate 
and  significant  statements  about  it.  The  intellectual  mode  of 
knowing  blue  is  thoroughly  significant.  It  finds  blue  in 
experience,  and  enables  the  conscious  subject  to  identify  this  object 
when  she  comes  across  it.  By  this  knowledge,  blue  is  part  of  the 
currency  of  Helen  Keller's  social  commerce.  It  is  a  factor  in  her 
life,  with  its  importance  and  interest.  Obviously,  she  can  have 
got  it  only  by  conceptualizing  it. 

Of  course  the  proposition  that  consciousness  is  indefinable  has 
the  same  futility  as  the  proposition  that  it  is  unnamable;  because, 
indeed,  they  have  the  same  meaning.  The  meaning,  we  have 
seen,  is  that,  in  trying  to  name  or  define  what  is  fluid,  private,  etc., 
there  is  a  miscarriage;  it  is  something  else  that  gets  named  or 
defined,  to  wit  the  representative  or  symbol  of  what  was  aimed  at. 
This  symbol,  being  fixed  and  public,  is  able  to  lend  itself  to  applica- 
tion of  the  fixed  and  public  name  or  concept.  But  we  have  also 
seen  that  a  name  is  only  a  symbol;  an  unnamable  thing  could  not 
be  symbolized.  If.  by  hypothesis,  it  is  symbolized,  it  is  therein 
namable. 


57.     The  anaolgy  holds  even  in  the  oppositness  of  direction  in  which  the  evanish- 
ment,  in  the  limiting  cases,  occurs  (cf.  above,  pp.  72,  80). 


98  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [168 

But  naming  a  thing  is  ipso  facto  relating  it,  for  it  is  associating  it 
with  something  else,  its  name  or  symbol;  in  naming  the  thing  you 
have  started  upon  the  process  of  defining  it,  which  is  the  infinite 
process  of  relating  it  or  understanding  it.  Exempting  things  from 
naming  or  definition,  sequestering  them  from  the  rational  domain, 
is  like  setting  a  limit  to  space.  Sequestering  from  the  rational 
domain  is  relating  to  it,  and  that  is  putting  into  it. 

If  the  illusion  in  trying  to  name  and  define  mental  states  is  due  to 
their  fluidity  and  i)rivacy,  by  the  same  token  the  same  treatment 
of  physical  objects,  which  Bergson  regards  as  valid  treatment,  is  in 
fact  equally  illusory.  To  be  sure,  physical  olijects  have  not, 
according  to  the  author,  the  flow  of  duration,  but  they  are  even 
less  dependable  creatures  than  mental  states,  for  in  every  new 
moment  they  are  something  absolutely  other  than  anytliing  which 
was  in  the  moment  before.  Besides  which,  in  spite  of  this  really 
incessant instantaneity,sometliing, not  explained, causes  them,u{)on 
the  "intersection"  of  our  duration  with  them,  to  appear  to  us  to  be 
self-identical  but  changed,  even  as  we  ourselves.  Physical  objects 
are  not  fixed.  One  finds  no  exceptions  in  nature  to  the  universal 
law  of  change;  and  the  state  of  any  physical  thing  at  a  given 
moment  is  the  outcome,  in  continuity,  of  its  ])revious  states,  to  an 
indefinite  regress. of  antecedents,  cjuite  as  the  case  stands  with  the 
ego.  In  respect  to  duration,  discriminating  between  physical  and 
mental  is  not  valid.  Even  between  organic  and  inorganic  matter 
or  between  conscious  and  unconscious  organisms  the  difference  is 
only  one  of  degree  or  tempo  of  change.  But  if  so,  it  is  arbitrary,  if 
one  regards  the  present  state  of  the  conscious  organism  as  emlKxly- 
ing  the  whole  of  its  past,  to  deny  this  of  tlie  stick  and  the  stone. 
Of  course  mental  states  are  not  i>ermanent;  subjects,  objects — noth- 
ing is  permanent  that  has  existence.  Nothing  stays  as  it  is.  The 
scope  of  naming  and  defining  is  not  limited  by  pernumencc. 
Neither,  however,  is  the  flux  of  nature  chaos,  that  it  should  not  be 
understandable.  Change,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  manifestation  of 
law,  i  n  the  time  of  Heraclitus,  now,  and  forever. 

Privacy  or  uniqueness  is  no  more  obstructive  to  understanding 
than  is  change,  and,  like  change,  has  no  peculiar  applicability  to 
mental  states  as  matter  of  knowledge.  Privacy  or  uniqueness 
applies  to  physical  objects  of  knowledge  in  essentially  the  same 
way  as  it  applies  to  mental  states.    Mere  accessibility  is,  in  prin- 


169]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  99 

ciple,  common  for  all  objects  of  knowledge,  to  all  subjects."  But 
there  is  a  special  reason  why  the  subject  of  the  state  is  particularly 
disqualified,  as  compared  with  others,  for  knowing  his  state 
immediately,  i.  e.  intuitively;  namely,  that,  at  the  time  of  the 
existence  of  the  state,  when,  alone,  it  could  be  known  intuitively, 
he  is  mainly  occupied  with  another  object  of  knowledge,  the  object 
of  the  state  in  question.  You  do  not,  then,  know  a  mental  state 
best  by  living  it,  or  rather  in  living  it;  your  knowledge  of  it  is  just 
then  at  its  worst,  since  you  are  then  preoccupied  in  knowing 
something  else.  The  state,  as  an  attribute  of  the  subject,  is  clearly 
one  of  the  subject's  relations,  and,  so,  conceptually  distinct  from 
either  term.  It  cannot  be  at  once  a  knowledge  and  the  object  of 
that  same  knowledge.  Bergson's  treatment  of  the  conscious  state 
conceives  it  in  just  that  way — as  if  the  relation  were  itself  one  of 
its  own  terms,  the  object. 

Knowing  a  mental  state  can  only  mean  understanding  it.  It  is 
not  a  concrete  datum,  like  the  sky,  but  an  abstraction  from  the 
relationship  in  which  the  subject  and  the  sky  function  as  terms. 
One  does  not  intuitively  know  the  subjective  process  of  blueness,  in 
looking  at  the  sky ;  one  knows  the  sky  in  that  sense,  but  the  process 
only  conceptually,  by  reflection.  Is  it  any  less  an  authentic 
object  of  knowledge?  Is  it  not  itself — is  it  any  symbol  of  itself? — 
which  you  name  and  define  and  talk  about  and  understand? 

The  practical  significance  of  saying  that  one  felt  and  now  remem- 
bers a  feeling  is  not  that  the  feeling  is  what  one  ever  felt.  Feeling 
Number  One  is  not  an  object  for  feeling  Number  Two,  neither 
during  Number  One  nor  afterward,  in  reminiscent  feeling.  So  far 
as  the  reminiscent  state  is  another  intuition,  its  object  is  the  same 
as  that  of  the  intuition  remembered — so  far.  But  to  be  reminis- 
cent, a  conscious  state  must  reflect  upon,  or  refer  to,  a  conscious 
state  distinct  from  itself.  This  reflective  reference  is  a  conceptual 
co-element  together  with  the  intuitional  character  of  the  reminis- 
cent state.  So  far  as  the  memory  is  reflective,  consciousness  is 
oriented  toward  the  original  state  itself  as  a  fact,  a  process,  concep- 
tually distinguishable  from  the  object  of  it.  It  is  thus  only  so  far 
as  conceptual  that  subjective  processes  can  be  objects  of  knowledge, 
or,  in  short,  be  known.  But  if  so,  Bergson  is  wrong  in  two  essential 
points:  in  denying  that  subjectivity  can  be  objectified,  and  in 


68.      Cf.  Perry's  analysis  of  subjective  privacy,  in  Chapter  XII  of  Present  Phi- 
losophical Tendencies. 


100  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [170 

affirming  that  knowledge  of  subjectivity  is  immediate  (i.  e.  non- 
conceptual)  or  intuitive. 

Any  reminiscent  state,  like  every  other  conscious  state,  undoubt- 
edly is  intuitive  in  a  certain  degree.  The  calmest  reflection  on  an 
originally  affective  experience  is  tinctured  v\-ith  a  rudimentary 
fluttering  of  the  old  feeling;  just  as,  on  the  other  hand,  the  most 
violent  early  repetitions  of  a  tempestuous  joy  or  grief  must  relate, 
in  order  to  be  reminiscent,  to  the  original  experience.  Xo  one  else, 
it  may  be  said,  can  appreciate  my  feeling  as  I  do,  myself:  this 
appreciation  is  no  conceptualization  of  that  feeling.  This  is  only 
to  say  that  the  affective  as  well  as  the  representative  aspect  of  any 
conscious  state  is  unique  for  each  subjective  center  of  interest. 
But  privacy  no  more  distinguishes  subjectivity  from  objectivity 
than  does  change.  Every  object,  being  self-identical,  is  unitjue,  its 
quality  private.  Inasmuch  as  each  conscious  subject  is  a  distinct 
center  of  interest  as  well  as  a  distinct  cognitive  subject,  the  affective 
value  of  a  state  of  a  given  subject  must  also  be  theoretically  unique 
for  that  subject.  But  the  state  is  nevertlieless  objective  and 
common  as  well  as  subjective  and  private,  since  in  fact  it  is  an 
object  for  understanding.  My  state  of  mind  is  jis  accessible  to 
your  understanding  as  your  own  (it  may  l>e  more  so,  to  be  sure). 
The  understanding  names  the  intuitive  state — anybody's  at  all, 
indifferently,  one's  own  or  another's —  as  truly  as  it  names  any 
other  relationship  or  process,  by  virtue  of  its  conceptual  coefficient; 
and  as  truly  relates  it  to  the  rest  of  the  rational  universe,  therein 
understanding  and  defining  it. 

The  derivation  of  the  three  heterologies  elucidated  in  the  three 
chapters  of  the  Essai,  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  the  funda- 
mental heterology  of  an  "absolutely"  two-fold  universe.  The 
intensity  of  mental  states  could  not  be  homogeneous,  for  Bergson, 
the  variousness  that  belongs  to  them  could  not  be  plural,  their 
organization  could  not  be  determinate,  because  then  they  would  be 
objective,  by  his  definition  of  objectivity.  But  why  may  a  sub- 
jective state  not  be  an  objective  state?  To  the  conceptualist,  to 
whom  these  terms  are  abstract  concepts,  points  of  view,  discursive 
contexts,  there  is  no  reason  at  all.  To  Professor  Bergson,  who  does 
what  he  accuses  conceptualism  of  doing,  namely  substituting  con- 
cepts for  concrete  realities,  it  is  a  contradiction,  for  one  concrete 
reality  cannot  be  another.  But  a  concrete  reahty  which,  for  a 
certain  purpose  and  in  a  certain  context,  one  symbolizes  by  the 


171]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  BergsorCs  Philosophy  101 

term  "subjective  state,"  may  very  well  be  the  same  concrete 
reality  which,  for  another  purpose,  one  symbolizes  by  the  phrase 
"objective  state. " 

We  have  seen  that  intensity  which  is  "pure,"  pure  quaUty,  is 
pure  nothing,  being  quality  of  nothing;  since,  if  it  is  quaUty  of 
anything,  it  has  its  quantitative  coefficient,  which  destroys  its 
purity.  So  variousness  which  is  "pure"  heterogeneity,  is  not  even 
various,  but  "nothing"  again.  For  it  is  "interpenetrating" 
instead  of  "juxtaposited"  or  impenetrable  heterogeneity.  But 
impenetrability  is  just  identity,  as  Bergson  remarks  ;^^  it  is  a  logical 
principle  rather  than  a  physical  law.  That  two  bodies  cannot 
occupy  the  same  space  and  time  means  that  they  would  therein  not 
be  two,  or  coexistent.  Now,  interpenetration  in  any  rigorous 
sense,  any  but  the  loose  colloquial  sense  of  small  division  and 
uniform  diffusion,  is  the  mere  contradiction  of  impenetrability  or 
identity.  It  means  that  two  bodies  do  occupy  the  same  space  at 
the  same  time.  If,  then,  this  law  of  interpenetration  thus  means 
to  require  (in  the  subject)  the  relation  of  coexistence,  and  also  (in 
the  predicate)  to  forbid  it — in  other  words,  if  it  is  contradictory  to 
itself — mental  states  can  obey  it  no  better  than  pebbles.  And, 
finally,  non-quantitative  causality  is  a  third  contradiction,  since 
its  "pure"  heterogeneity  destroys  its  continuity  in  time  as  well  as 
in  space  (cf.  above,  page  93). 

How  can  any  of  these  three  pairs  of  heterologous  principles  of 
space  and  time  be  "absolutely"  different  if,  however  different, 
each  pair  have  such  essential  community  of  nature  that  both  must 
be  called  by  one  name  and  thought  under  one  category,  as  two 
species  of  the  same  genus?  For,  in  spite  of  all  their  differences, 
they  are,  throughout  the  discussion,  two  kinds  of  intensity,  of 
multiplicity,  of  causation. 


59.     Time  and  Free  Will,  p.  88. 


Chaptek  V 

THE   MYSTICAL   YEARNING    OF    INTUITIONISM 

I  will  conclude  these  coninieiils  on  Professor  Bergson's  teaching 
by  noting  the  mystical  nature  of  the  central  idea  of  his  epistem- 
ology,  the  identification  of  subject  and  object.  The  yearning  for 
a  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  thing-in-itsclf,  for  a 
knowledge  truer  and  more  searching  than  the  "practical"  and 
"useful"  reactive  relations  which  we  bear  to  our  "phenomenal" 
objects — as  if  such  experience  were  unworthy  the  sacred  name  of 
knowledge — this,  the  j)rime  aspiration  of  the  intuitional  philosophy 
of  Bergson,  reduces  to  a  futile,  if  not  a  morbid,  yearning  after 
self-contradiction.  The  more  you  know  a  thing  "in  itself,"  the 
more  you  "internalize"  your  relation  to  it — in  short,  the  more  you 
identify  yourself  with  it — the  less  you  bear  any  significant  relation 
to  it  at  all,  any  relation,  obviously,  ])ut  that  of  identity;  the  less, 
notably,  you  bear  the  active  and  cognitive  relations  toward  it. 
The  indispensable  condition  of  Paul's  knowing  Peter  is  that  Paul 
should  not  become  Peter.  Things  can  neither  be  nor  be  conceived 
except  in  some  relations,  any  more  than  relations  without  terms. 
If  you  know  the  thing  in  its  relations,  you  know  the  thing  as  nmch 
in  itself  as  a  thing  is  capable  of  being. 

"You  show,"  writes  Professor  Bergson,  in  the  letter  quoted 
before,  "that  perfect  intuitive  knowledge,  as  I  mean  it,  would 
consist  in  coincidence  with  the  object  known;  but  that  then  there 
would  no  longer  be  knowledge  of  any  object,  since  only  the  object 
remains. — Yet,  in  the  case  of  an  entirely  free  action,  i.  e.  an  act  in 
which  the  entire  jierson  takes  part,  one  is  altogether  in  what  he  is 
doing;  one  has,  at  the  same  time,  consciousness  of  what  he  is  doing; 
and  yet  he  is  not  duplicated  in  observing  his  own  activity,  absorbed 
as  he  is  in  the  act  itself:  here  to  act  and  to  know  (or  rather  to 

102 


I 


173]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  103 

possess)  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  Intelhgence,  always  outside 
of  what  it  observes,  cannot  conceive  of  knowledge  without  dis- 
tinctness of  subject  and  object.  It  is  intelligence  that  propounds 
your  dilemma:  'Either  there  is  knowledge  of  the  object,  hence 
distinctness  of  object  and  subject;  or  subject  coincides  with  object, 
and  then  there  is  only  object :  knowledge  vanishes. ' — But  reality  does 
not  accept  this  dilemma.  It  presents  us,  in  the  case  cited,  subject 
and  object  as  a  single  indivisible  reality,  action  and  knowledge  of 
the  action  as  a  single  indivisible  reality,  of  which  intelligence 
subsequently  takes  two  points  of  view,  that  of  object  and  that  of 
subject,  that  of  action  without  knowledge  and  that  of  pure  knowl- 
edge. We  have  no  right  to  set  up  these  points  of  view  of  reality  as 
constitutiie  elements  of  reality  itself. " 

The  last  sentence  accuses  me  of  doing  what  I  am  most  zealous  to 
show  is  the  foundation  fallacy  of  intuitionism!  I  have  been  con- 
tending that,  when  IMonsieur  Bergson  says  that  subjectivity  cannot 
be  objectified,  he  is  speaking  as  if  "objectifying,"  instead  of  mean- 
ing to  take  a  point  of  view,  means  to  alter  the  reality  symbolized 
l)y  the  word  "subjectivity."  (Of  course  the  question  concerns 
concrete  cases  of  subjectivity,  the  intuitionist  contending  that  a 
given  subjective  state  cannot  be  objectified — i.  e.  named,  defined, 
etc.)  Now,  this  seems  to  me  precisely  to  "set  up  a  point  of  view 
of  reality  as  a  constitutive  element  of  reality  itself. "  But  intui- 
tionism does  even  wor.se  than  this.  Having  set  up  this  point  of 
view  of  reality,  anil  treated  it  in  this  concrete  way,  and  worshipped 
it  as  the  Absolute,  it  snubs  that  other  point  of  view,  which,  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  genuinelv  concrete  reality,  is  coordinate  with 
the  deified  abstraction,  its  ])rother  and  peer.  The  object  has 
"such  reahty  as  that  of  rest,  which  is  the  negation  of  motion," 
the  absolute  and  positive;  "yet  it  is  not  absolute  naught. " 

It  .seems  to  me  that  Bergson  virtually  admits  the  impossibility 
of  the  coincidence  of  subject  and  object  when  he  says  that  instinct 
and  intellect  are  neither  possibly  pure,  which  is  deeply  true.  But 
then  an  action  "comi)letely  free"  is  only  a  limiting  case,  is  it 
not? — a  case  which  ^^ould  put  the  action  out  of  relation  and  so  out 
of  activity?  In  a  certain  obvious  sense  "the  whole  person  takes 
part,"  perhaps,  in  any  action;  but  I  cannot  imagine  any  action 
or  state  that  could  be  other  than  a  relation  between  object  and 
subject.  I  cannot  see  how  perfect  self-expression  in  one's  act 
makes  in  any  degree  for  obliteration  of  ontological  distinctness 


lOJf  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [17Jt 

between  agent  and  patient,  subject  and  object.  How  may  action 
be  conceived  to  dispense  with  reaction?  How  deny  its  relational 
character,  then,  without  denying  its  activity — in  short,  without 
contradiction?  "Perfect  self-expression"  distinguishes  certain 
acts,  no  doubt,  but  the  distinction  is  ethical,  denoting  a  teleo- 
logical  harmony,  not  a  metaphysical  identity  between  subject  and 
object. 

To  say  that  one  is  completely  one's  act  and  yet  knows  his  act 
again  confuses  a  relation  with  one  of  its  terms.  Is  it  merely  a 
matter  of  taste  to  choose  to  say  that  such  a  state — i.  e.  perfect 
absorption  in  one's  act — is  not  knowledge  of  the  act  just  in  so  far  as 
it  is  the  act?  Is  it  not  necessary  to  distinguish  betw^een  the  sub- 
ject's relation  to  the  act,  on  one  hand,  and  to  those  things,  on  the 
other  (which  are  neither  subject  nor  act)  entering,  together  with 
the  subject,  into  the  act?  Those  things,  it  seems  to  me,  are  the 
object,  and  the  act  itself  a  relation  between  the  subject  and  them, 
a  relation  which  wears  a  conscious  as  well  as  an  active  aspect,  and 
which,  as  knowledge,  is  knowledge  of  the  things,  not  of  the  act, 
not  of  itself. 


PART  THREE 
BERGSON'S  GENIUS 


Bergson's  Genius 

Logical  soundness  is  never  amiss,  and  is  notably  desirable  in  a 
philosopher;  but  Professor  Bergson  is  assuredly  right  in  thinking 
that  it  is  no  measure  of  a  philosopher's  genius.  One's  feehng  about 
the  fallacies  of  Spinoza  and  Berkeley  and  Kant  may  pale  almost 
into  indifference,  in  the  enthusiasm  of  following  such  heroic  feats 
of  insight. 

But  then,  it  would  seem,  their  greatness  is  their  insight,  and  not 
their  logic,  and  insight  therefore,  after  all,  is  philosophical  genius. 

\Ye  have  seen  that  this  is  Professor  Bergson's  conclusion.  It 
can  be  interpreted  in  a  sense  that  is  valid,  of  course:  all  depends  on 
the  meaning  of  "insight."  I  have  insisted  sufficiently  on  the 
reasons  why  I  cannot  think  Professor  Bergson's  interpretation  of 
it  is  valid.  It  is  a  case  in  which  the  etymological  and  the  actual 
meaning  of  a  word,  in  a  certain  context,  differ  and  so  give  rise  to 
ambiguity.  The  word  "intuition,"  etymologically,  means  just 
"insight."  But  then  it  means  consciousness  functioning  most 
completely,  least  abstractly.  Now,  Bergsonian  "intuition"  is  a 
conception  so  far  from  concrete  completeness  that  almost  the 
primary  object  of  his  philosophy  is  the  demarcation  of  intuition 
from  any  actual  state  of  which  consciousness  is  normally  capable. 
It  is  true  that  Bergson  insists  that  consciousness,  in  a  supernormal 
effort,  is  capable  of  the  purely  intuitive  act,  and  that  in  the  capacity 
for  this  feat  of  knowing  lies  all  the  hope  of  metaphysics.  This  is 
the  ground  principle  of  Bergsonism,  and  I  have  nothing  to  add 
here,  concerning  its  merits.  In  a  word,  its  fallacy  is  the  fallacy  of 
reification.  No  such  feat  of  consciousness  is  possible,  not  because 
it  is  more  than  the  limited  power  of  actual  mind  can  compass,  but 
because  it  is  a  contradiction,  since  it  is  consciousness  without 
object,  which  is  consciousness  of  nothing. 

107 


108  University  of  Kayisas  Humanistic  Studies  [178 

The  Bergsonian  will  object  that,  if  Bergsonian  "intuition"  is 
abstract,  no  less  abstract  is  intellect;  and,  if  philosophy  is  insight, — 
consciousness  most  complete, — the  thesis  contrary  to  intuitionism, 
that  philosophy  is  intellectual  judgment,  is  a  case  of  the  same 
fallacy  that  has  been  charged  to  intuitionism,  and  is  inconsistent 
with  the  admission  that  philosophy  is  essentially  an  insight  which 
involves  more  than  intellect. 

The  answer  is  first,  that  intellectuulism,  unlike  intuitionism, 
regards  philosophy  as  indeed  an  abstract  interest,  and  for  that 
reason  as  not  separable  from  the  living  of  a  life  which  sui)ports  this 
interest  in  a  larger  total  interest;  but,  also  for  that  reason,  as  not 
possibly  identical,  either  with  life  entire  or  with  any  interest,  such 
as  the  aesthetic,  of  like  abstractness  with  philosophy.  The  answer 
to  the  second  part  of  the  objection  is  that  an  insight  which  is  more 
than  intellect  is  not  for  that  reason  without  its  intellectual  asi)ect. 
Consciousness  is  always  significant,  certainly;  but  if  it  has  any 
meaning,ifit7ssignificant,itis,in  that  fact, intellectual.  And  insight 
without  meaning  is  a  contradiction,  antl  is  assuredly  not  philosophy. 
The  appearanceofincon.sistency  arises  from  the  unconscious  identify- 
ingofinsightwith  intuition  in  the  falsely  reified  sense.  Insight  in  any 
such  sense  philosophy  certainly  is  not.  .Vnd  yet  the  intellectualist 
may  properly  attribute  the  greatness  of  a  jjliilosophy  to  its  insight 
rather  than  to  its  logical  cogency,  since  cogent  logic  may  be  dull 
and  shallow  and  therefore  not  great.  It  is  great  if  it  is  fiir-.seeing 
and  deep.     There  is  analytic  insight,  as  well  as  intuitive. 

After  all  is  said,  the  feeling  that  even  sericnis  lapse  of  logic  may 
not  be  suflScient  to  destroy  the  value  of  a  great  philosophy  is  not 
the  same  as  the  opinion  that  logic  is  immaterial  to  that  value.  No 
one,  I  dare  say, — intuitionist,  intellectualist  or  anyone  else — ever 
thought  this.  The  genius  of  a  great  philosophy  is  a  sui>erior 
perspicacity  in  the  recognition  of  the  significance  of  problems,  a 
superior  discernment  of  the  problematic  as  such.  "The  earhest 
philosophers"  says  Professor  James,*°".  .  .  were  just  men 
curious  beyond  immediate  practical  needs,  and  no  particular 
problems,  but  rather  the  problematic  generally,  was  their  spe- 
cialty." But  the  perspicacity  which  sees  the  meaning  and  bearings 
of  a  problem  cannot  fail  to  attack  its  further  interpretation  with 
a  superior  freshness  and  originality.     And  the  interpretation  of  a 


(JO.     Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  10. 


179]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsoris  Philosophy  109 

problem,  carried  to  the  end,  is  its  only  solution.  Genius  in  phi- 
losophy thus  also  turns  into  superior  richness  of  suggestion  in  the 
solutions  which  it  invents.  Inasmuch  as  the  problem-putting  and 
the  problem-solving  processes  are  continuous  with  each  other,  and 
in  this  important  sense  one  and  the  same  thing,  it  should  be  ex- 
pected that  philosophical  genius  would  possess  both  virtues,  in 
any  actual  instance.  And  no  doubt  this  is  the  historical  fact.  On 
any  view  it  is  suggestiveness,  fertility,  which  is  the  measure  of 
philosophical  genius.  And  it  seems  to  the  intellectuahst  that  the 
possibility  of  philosophical  fertility  depends  on  a  discursive, 
intellectual  co-implication  of  the  parts  of  the  realm  of  truth. 

But  although  these  two  phases  of  philosophical  genius — the 
problem-putting  and  the  problem-solving  phases — have  so  intimate 
a  relation  with  each  other,  they  can  and  do  appear  in  different 
emphases  in  different  philosophers.  The  emphasis  in  any  par- 
ticular case  is  undoubtedly  determined  in  part  from  without, 
notably  by  the  philosopher's  epochal  relations.  Thales  is  greater, 
as  well  as  more  momentous  historically,  in  his  quest  of  an  apxyj  than 
in  the  consummation  of  the  quest.  With  Hegel's  material  to  work 
upon,  the  emphasis  in  Thales'  genius  would  have  been  proportion- 
ately modified.  And  if  Bergson  has  not,  like  Thales,  unearthed 
new  problems,  that  is  nothing,  for  the  question  of  the  value  of  his 
work. 

Indeed,  the  historical  momentousness  of  a  philosophy  is  quite 
largely  independent  of  its  intrinsic  merit  in  either  of  these  senses, 
or  in  any  sense.  Conditions  which  contribute  to  the  vogue  and 
influence  of  a  philosophy  are  many,  some  obvious  enough,  others 
more  recondite.  The  question  of  historical  momentousness  is  thus 
only  partly  germane  to  an  estimate  of  a  philosophy's  own  intrinsic 
worth;  and,  in  the  case  of  a  contemporary  philosophy,  is  in  the 
nature  of  things  (while  the  historj'  is  yet  to  be  made)  an  almost 
unmitigated  speculation.  Such  speculation  regarding  Bergson  is 
no  part  of  the  present  purpose. 

One  word  more — before  undertaking  to  appraise  the  genius  of 
Bergson — as  to  the  motive  of  such  an  undertaking  in  this  particular 
essay.  It  is  no  part  of  the  primary  object  of  the  essay.  That 
object  is  the  very  impersonal  one  of  understanding  his  doctrine. 
If  logical  fallacies  are  in  any  sense  or  degree  irrelevant  to  the  value 
of  a  philosophy,  it  is  nevertheless  a  method  of  studying  a  philo- 
sophical work  which  is  not  without  its  value,  to  square  it  with 


110  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [180 

logical  principles.  When  the  philosophy  under  criticism  is 
already  a  classic,  the  omission  of  appreciative  comment  needs  no 
apology,  just  because  the  merit  of  the  work  is  beyond  dispute.  On 
Platonism  and  on  Kantism  much  valuable  light  has  been  thrown  in 
this  severe  way.  In  studies  so  occupied,  disquisition  on  the 
immortal  inspiration  of  the  vision  bequeathed  to  mankind  in 
syllogisms  which  sometimes  halt  would  not  have  enhanced  the 
value  of  the  study. 

When  our  philosopher  is  a  contemporary,  the  case  is  different  in 
that  then  personal  predilection  and  prejudice  arc  without  the 
regulation  imposed  by  historical  j)erspective;  and  injustice,  even 
negative  or  privative,  either  to  the  living  philosopher  or  to  his 
living  antagonists,  has  a  certain  huniiin  imj)(>rt  of  which  the  con- 
ditions are  removed  with  mere  temporal  remoteness  of  the  subject 
of  study,  when  history  has  placed  him  in  a  setting  which  includes 
an  "after"  as  well  as  a  "before. " 

Professor  A.  I).  Lindsay  has  pointed  out*^'  that,  in  one  important 
respect,  Bergson's  genius  is  of  the  Kantian  kind.  It  is  capacity 
for  such  interpretation  of  old  problems  that  they  become  veritably 
renewed.  "It  is  a  great  and  essential  proof  of  cleverness  or  in- 
sight," said  Kant,  "to  know  how  to  ask  reasonable  questions." 
Now,  comments  Professor  Lindsay  (without  suggesting  any  com- 
parison in  importance  between  Kant  and  Hergson),  there  is  this 
resemblance  between  them,  that  nuich  of  the  interest  of  Bergson's 
work,  as  of  Kant's,  consists  in  statement  and  exposition  of  anti- 
nomies in  philosoj)hy.  Like  Kant's,  Bergson's  philosoi)hy  is 
interesting  because  it  is  a  new  method,  and,  in  the  same  sense  as 
Kant's,  is  a  critical  philosoj)hy,  for  it  consists  in  finding  the  main 
source  of  previous  difficulties  in  uncriticized  false  as.sumj)tions. 

Such  criticism  of  the  question  ("interpretation  of  the  problem  " 
I  called  it  above)  is  just  the  i)roper  business  of  the  philosopher. 
For,  every  question  is  also  an  unconditional  assertion.  Falseness 
in  this  implied  assertion  is  a  case  of  the  fallacy  of  "many  ques- 
tions," which,  accordingly,  may  ho  regarded  as  the  philosopher's 
first  concern. 

Bergson  is  a  philosopher  preeminently  in  this  sense.  He  is  a 
philosopher  also  (in  spite  of  the  cavalier  denial  of  Sir.  E.Ray  Lankes- 


61.      The  PhUosophfi  of  licrfison,  pp.  1 .  2,  .i. 


181]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergson's  Philosophy  111 

ter)**  in  that  he  is  a  man  with  au  articulate  conviction  concerning 
the  nature  of  being  and  of  knowledge.  In  the  aspersion  of  Berg- 
son's  thought  by  the  above  writer  and  by  Mr.  Hugh  S.  R.  Elliot,** 
there  is  a  rancour  which,  in  spite  of  much  valid  criticism  in 
detail,  produces  an  impression  of  ill-regulated  prejudice. 

This  impression  is  no  more  than  fairly  counterbalanced  by  the 
contrary  enthusiasm  of  such  whole-souled  votaries  of  Bergsonism 
as  Edouard  LeRoy,  William  James  and  H.  Wildon  Carr. 

"There  is  a  thinker,"  writes  M.  LeRoy,  "who  is  deemed  by 
acknowledged  philosophers  worthy  of  comparison  with  the  greatest. 

.  .  .  Beyond  any  doubt,  and  by  common  consent,  Mr.  Henri 
Bergson's  work  will  a[)pear  to  future  eyes  among  the  most  charac- 
teristic, fertile  and  glorious  of  our  era.  It  marks  a  never-to-be- 
forgotten  date  in  history;  it  opens  up  a  phase  of  metaphysical 
thought,  it  lays  down  a  principle  of  development  the  limits  of  which 
are  indeterminable;  and  it  is  after  cool  c<msideration,  with  full 
consciousness  of  the  exact  value  of  words,  that  we  are  able  to 
pronounce  the  revolution  which  it  effects  equal  in  importance  to 
that  effected  by  Kant,  or  even  by  Socrates.  ""^^  It  is  a  "i)rofoundly 
original  doctrine."  And  of  endless  fertility:  "There  is  no  doc- 
trine .  .  which  is  more  open,  and  none  which  .  .  . 
lends  itself  to  further  extension. "  Again:  "...  a  doctrine 
which  admits  of  infinite  development  ...  a  work  of  such 
profound  thought  that  the  least  passing  example  employed  takes 
its  place  as  a  particular  study.  "^•'     And  so  on  ad  libitum. 

These  are  the  glowing  words  of  an  ardent  disciple  (even  though 
not  a  pupil)  and  may  be  expected  to  be  not,  after  all,  altogether 
regulated  by  a  "full  consciousness  of  the  exact  value  of  words." 
Such  i)hrases  as  "worthy  of  comparison  with  the  greatest," 
"beyond  any  doubt,"  "by  common  consent,"  are  pleasantly 
vague,  and  should  not  offend  any  judgment  that  is  not  literal  in 
season  and  out  of  season.  As  to  the  Bergsonian  "revolution,"  it 
should  offend  no  one  at  all  who  can  put  up  with  an  expression  of 
purely  speculative  relish.  So  far,  on  the  other  hand,  as  this  revo- 
lution is  accomplished  fact  in  the  prime  of  our  philosopher's  middle 
age,  the  mention  of  Socrates  and  Kant  does  savour  of  the 
ornate ! 


62.  Modern  Science  and  the  Illusions  of  Professor  Bergson,  pp.  vii,  viii. 

(53.  Op.  cit.,  passing. 

64.  The  New  Philosophy  of  Henri  Bergson,  pp.  1  and  2. 

05.  Ibid.,  pp.  126.  230. 


112  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [182 

Bergson  is  at  least  preeminent  over  all  other  living  philosophers 
as  the  expression  of  a  very  revolutionary  Zeitgeist.  The  gener- 
ation of  Taine  and  Renan  (I^Roy  goes  on  to  say)was  characterized 
by  the  positivistic  presumption  that  any  object  whatever  could  be 
'inserted  in  the  thread  of  one  and  the  same  unbroken  connection. ' 
But  rationalistic  arrogance  has  never  failed  to  arouse  an  answer- 
ing voice  of  protest  and  dissent;  and  of  our  own  generation  such 
anti-intellectualism  is  one  of  the  controlling  ideas.  It  is  primarily 
the  reactionary  conviction  that  the  analytic  method  of  philosophy 
is  abstract  and  empty.  It  is,  says  I-eRoy,  a  demand  for  "complete 
experience,  anxious  to  neglect  no  aspect  of  being  nor  any  resource 
of  mind. "  "Everything  is  regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  life, 
and  there  is  a  tendency  more  and  more  to  recognize  the  primacy  of 
spiritual  activity."  "That  the  attitude  and  fundamenUil  pro- 
cedure of  this  new  spirit  are  in  no  way  a  return  to  skepticism  or  a 
reaction  against  thought  cannot  be  better  demonstrated  than  by 
this  resurrection  of  metaphysics,  this  renaissance  of  idealism, 
which  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  distinctive  features  of  our 
epoch."  "But  .  .  .  we  wish  to  think  with  the  whole  of 
thought,  and  go  to  the  truth  with  the  whole  of  our  soul  .  .  . 
And  what  is  that,  really,  but  realism?  By  realism  I  mean  the  gift 
of  ourselves  to  reality,  the  work  of  concrete  realization  .  . 
to  live  what  we  think  and  think  what  we  live.  But  that  is  posi- 
tivism, you  will  say;  certainly  it  is  positivism.  But  how  changed! 
For,  from  considering  as  positive  only  that  which  can  be  an  object 
of  sensation  or  calculation,  we  begin  by  treating  the  great  spiritual 
realities  with  this  title. " 

"A  new  philosophy  was  retjuired  to  answer  this  new  way  of  looking 
at  things.  Already,  in  1867,  Ravais.son,  in  his  celebrated  Report, 
wrote  these  prophetic  lines:  'Many  signs  permit  us  to  forsee  in 
the  near  future  a  philosophical  epoch  of  which  the  general  character 
will  be  the  predominance  of  what  may  be  called  spiritualist  realism 
or  positivism,  having  as  generating  principle  the  consciousness 
which  the  mind  has  in  itself  of  an  existence  recognized  as  being  the 
source  and  support  of  every  other  existence,  being  none  other 
than  its  action. ' 

".  .  .  What  Ravaisson  had  only  anticipated,  Mr.  Bergson 
himself  accomplishes,  with  a  precision  which  gives  body  to  the 
impalpable  and  floating  breath  of  first  inspiration,  with  a  depth 
which  renews  both  })roof  and  theses  alike,  with  a  creative  originality 


183]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  113 

which  prevents  the  critic  who  is  anxious  for  justice  and  precision 
from  insisting  on  any  researches  estabhshing  connection  of 
thought." 

"...  Mr.  Bergson  has  contributed  more  than  anyone  else 
to  awaken  the  very  tendencies  of  the  milieu  in  which  his  new  phi- 
losophy is  produced,  to  determine  them  and  make  them  become 
conscious  of  themselves.  "^ 

In  the  new  and  significant  relation  which  LeRoy  and  others  find 
in  Bergson  to  motives  of  thought  so  distinct  as  idealism,  reaUsm, 
and  positivism,  he  is  a  writer  of  the  fertility  of  genius;  in  the  skill 
of  his  transfusion  of  these  motives  into  a  type  of  conception  under- 
lying a  very  deep  and  widely  extended  tendency  of  the  age,  he  is 
the  foremost  expression  of  that  tendency.  In  a  very  limited  way, 
only,  can  such  enthusiasm  as  LeRoy 's,  in  a  mind  of  his  excellent 
discernment,  be  reasonably  discounted.  Trimmed  of  all  its 
abounding  fervours  its  fighting  weight  is  still  sufficiently  impres- 
sive: how  resonant  to  motives  and  convictions  of  actually  con- 
trolling interest  that  mind  must  be  which  can  elicit  such  response, 
needs  no  better  proof  than  the  response  itself.  No  one  else  is 
so  well  attuned  as  Bergson  to  that  demand  for  complete  experience 
which,  if  anything,  is  the  spirit  of  our  time.  No  one  else  has 
carried  so  far  in  theory  the  possibilities  of  an  intense  instinctive 
living,  as  the  answer  to  the  riddle  of  the  universe.  What  can  be 
said  for  instinct  as  an  organ  of  philosophy,  Bergson  has  said. 

All  philosophers  of  immediacy  hold  Bergson  as  chief.  Carr,  like 
LeRoy,  thinks  Bergson's  doctrine  as  momentously  original  as 
those  of  the  greatest  classics.  "Great  scientific  discoveries,"  he 
writes,*'  "are  often  so  simple  that  the  greatest  wonder  about  them 
is  that  humanity  has  had  to  wait  so  long  for  them. "  Thus  with 
Berkeley's  ''esse  est  percipi''  and  Kant's  autonomy  of  the  intel- 
lectual categories.  And  equally  so  with  Bergson's  interpreta- 
tion of  reality  as  life,  "living  creative  evolution,"  as  distinct 
both  from  solid  matter  and  thinking  mind. 

James,  while  others  find  quite  determinate  differences  between 
him  and  Bergson,  was  far  less  cognizant,  himself,  of  differences 
than  of  agreement.  He  was  one  of  the  keenest  of  Bergsonians, 
and  regarded  himself,  certainly  with  a  great  deal  of  genial  modesty, 
as  a  follower,  a  disciple.     "...     if  I  had  not  read  Bergson," 


66.  Op.  ctr.pp.  128  ff. 

67.  Henri  Bergson:  The  Philosophy  of  Change,  p.  12. 


llJf  University  of  Kansas  Humanistic  Studies  [18j^ 

he  says/8  "I  should  probably  still  be  blackening  endless  pages  of 
paper  privately,  in  the  hope  of  making  ends  meet  that  were  never 
meant  to  meet  .  .  .  It  is  certain  that  without  the  confidence 
which  being  able  to  lean  on  Bergson's  authority  gives  me,  I  should 
never  have  ventured  to  urge  these  particular  views  of 
mine  ...  In  my  opinion  he  has  killed  intellectualism 
definitively  and  without  hope  of  recovery. " 

The  quantity  and  quality  of  the  study  of  Bergson's  problems 
by  others,  which  his  own  treatment  of  them  has  stinmlated,  is 
already  an  enviable  monument  to  that  best  quality  of  philosophic 
genius  in  his  work,  its  fertihty  of  suggestion.  Speaking,  as  the 
present  writer  must,  from  the  point  of  view  of  critical  reaction, 
the  value  of  Bergson  is  indeed  incalculable.  This  is  no  conven- 
tional phrase.  His  theoretical  opponent  is  almost  inclined  to 
feel  that  the  stimulus  which  Bergson's  lucid  exfwsition  affords,  to 
a  mind  of  contrary  conviction,  to  understand  itself,  nmst  be  a 
more  precious  good  even  than  the  (juickening  which  his  followers 
so  eloquently  confess. 

The  fact  is  that  this  eloquence  is  always  more  than  eloquence; 
it  is  a  fervour  almost  like  religious  fervour.  Witness  the  words 
just  (|uoted  from  James.  Ever>'  true  Bergsonian  testifies  in  the 
same  tone.  Thus  l^'Roy:*^"  "Mr.  Bergson's  readers  will  ujidergo 
at  almost  every  page  they  read  an  intense  and  singular  experience. 
The  curtain  drawn  between  ourselves  and  reality,  enveloping 
everything,  including  ourselves,  in  it.s  illusive  folds,  seems  of  a 
sudden  to  fall,  dissipated  by  eucliantment,  and  display  to  the  mind 
depths  of  light  till  then  undreamt,  in  which  reality  it.self.  contem- 
plated face  to  face  for  the  first  time,  stands  fully  revealed.  The 
revelation  is  overpowering,  and,  once  vouch.safed,  will  never  after- 
wards be  forgotten. 

"Nothing  can  convey  to  the  reader  the  effects  of  tliis  direct  and 
intimate  mental  vision.  Everything  which  he  thought  he  knew 
already  finds  new  birth  and  vigor  in  the  clear  light  of  morning;  on 
all  hands,  in  the  glow  of  dawn,  new  intuitions  spring  up  and  open 
out;  we  feel  them  big  with  infinite  consequences,  heavy  and 
saturated  with  life.  Each  of  them  is  no  sooner  blown  than  it 
appears  fertile  forever.     And  yet  there  is  nothing  paradoxical  or 

68.     A  Pluralistic  Uniecrsr.  pp.  •_M4.  lm.'S. 
(>».     Op.  f?7.,  pp. .-?,  4.  5.  (i. 


]85]  Mitchell:     Studies  in  Bergsons  Philosophy  115 

disturbing  in  the  novelty.     It  is  a  reply  to  our  expectation,  an 
answer  to  some  dim  hope.     .     .     . 

...  whether,  in  the  long  run,  we  each  of  us  give  or 
refuse  complete  or  jjartial  adhesion,  all  of  us  at  least  have  received 
a  regenerating  shock,  an  internal  upheaval  .  .  .  henceforth 
a  new  leaven  works  and  ferments  in  us;  we  shall  no  longer  think  as 
we  used  to  think.  "  As  for  the  attitude  of  mind  proper  to  bring  to 
the  reading  of  Bergson,  "where  the  end  is  to  understand  rather 
than  to  judge,  criticism  ought  to  take  second  place.  It  is  more 
profitable  to  attempt  to  feel  oneself  into  the  heart  of  the  teaching, 
to  relive  its  genesis,  to  perceive  the  principle  of  organic  unity,  to 
come  at  the  mainspring.  Let  our  reading  be  a  course  of  meditation 
which  we  live. " 

And  Gaston  Rageot:  "...  the  reading  of  a  work  of 
Bergson's  requires  at  the  very  beginning  a  sort  of  inner  catastrophe; 
not  everyone  is  capable  of  such  a  logical  revolution."^"  A  little 
further  on  he  speaks  of  this  preparation  of  the  mind  to  receive  the 
Bergsonian  doctrine  as  "  cette  volte-face  psychologique. " 

Conversion  to  Bergsonism,  indeed,  suggests  religious  conversion. 
Compare  James'  words  with  the  above.  "...  if,  as  Bergson 
shows,  (the  conceptual  or  discursive  form  of  reality]  cannot  even 
pretend  to  reveal  anything  of  what  life's  inner  nature  is  or  ought 
to  be;  why,  then  we  can  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  its  accusations.  The 
resolve  to  turn  the  deaf  ear  is  the  inner  crisis  or  'catastrophe'  of 
which  [M.  Rageot]  spoke  .  .  .  [This]  comes  very  hard.  It  is 
putting  off  our  proud  maturity  of  mind  and  becoming  again  as 
foolish  little  children  in  the  eyes  of  reason.  But  difficult  as  such  a 
revolution  is,  there  is  no  other  way,  I  believe,  to  the  possession  of 
reality,"^' 

Is  not  this  experience  very  suggestive  of  the  "regeneration"  of 
Christianity?  I  think  it  is,  indeed;  and  I  think  this  fact  is  sugges- 
tive of  the  essential  nature  of  Bergsonism.  One  may  turn  a  deaf 
ear  to  reason,  one  may  execute  a  volte-face  psychologique;  but, 
whatever  the  rewards,  it  seems  unHkely  (to  the  unregenerate,  of 
course!)  that  among  them  will  be  included  a  better  comprehension 
of  the  meaning  of  reality. 


70.  Revue  Philosophigue,  Ann.  .32,  Xo.  7  (July  1907).  p.  85. 

71.  Op.  ct7..  pp.  272-3. 


^i 


